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Science Says: Why Biodiversity Matters to You


FILE - An ashtray made from a rhinoceros foot is displayed with other confiscated illegal animal parts at a news conference at the Woodland Park Zoo where an event to turn in endangered species animal parts was announced, April 3, 2019, in Seattle, Wash.
FILE - An ashtray made from a rhinoceros foot is displayed with other confiscated illegal animal parts at a news conference at the Woodland Park Zoo where an event to turn in endangered species animal parts was announced, April 3, 2019, in Seattle, Wash.

Scientists say you may go your entire life without seeing an endangered species, yet the globe's biodiversity crisis threatens all of humanity in unseen ways.

A massive United Nations report Monday said that nature is in trouble and that 1 million species are threatened with extinction if nothing is done about it.

The report says nature is essential for human existence.

It spells out 18 ways nature helps keep people alive. Those include food, energy, medicine, water, protection from storms and floods, and slowing climate change. The report said 14 of those are on long-term declining trends.

Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm says if you destroy nature it bites you.

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