Herefordshire Biodiversity Partnership

What is Biodiversity?

Biodiversity is, simply, the variety of life on earth. The term 'biodiversity' was coined by the American zoologist Edward O. Wilson and is an abbreviation of 'biological diversity'. This diversity encompasses the variation between and within ecosystems, ecological communities and populations, as well as between and within individual species.

 

Article two of the Convention on Biological Diversity defines biodiversity as:

'The variability among living organisms from all sources including, amongst others, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.'

'Biodiversity' is essentially another word for nature but places a particular emphasis on the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things. The variation in scale at which nature can be described, at which natural processes and ecological change occur - from the global, through ecosystems, communities, populations to between individuals - is a key element of the concept of biodiversity.