Addis Ababa – A recent report underscores the significant impact of biodiversity loss on medicine and human health, highlighting the urgency of this issue in the context of climate change and land-use changes.
According to World Economic Forum, biodiversity loss is one of the gravest risks the world faces over the next decade. Nearly half of the world’s flowering plants are at risk of extinction, which has dire implications for health and medicine. Over 40% of pharmaceutical formulations are derived from natural sources, and the loss of biodiversity threatens this vital resource.
The Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, emphasizes the ancient lineage and current vulnerability of many plant species, such as orchids, which date back 83 million years. Today, 56% of the orchid family is at risk of extinction, compared to 45% of all flowering plants. The situation is so critical that some plant species are becoming extinct even as they are discovered.
Fungi, with an estimated 2.5 million species globally, represent a vast but largely undiscovered source of potential medical treatments. However, up to 95% of the world’s fungi are yet to be discovered, and there is a race against time to find them before they are lost to human-induced environmental changes.
The loss of biodiversity not only impacts the availability of medicinal resources but also the traditional practices that rely on them. For example, orchids have been used in Chinese medicine since 2800 BC. Additionally, fungi are increasingly being recognized for their bioactive compounds, including antibiotics and immunosuppressants.
Taxol, an important anticancer agent found in the bark of certain yew trees, exemplifies the link between biodiversity and pharmaceuticals. Many life-saving drugs, including 70% of all cancer drugs, are either natural or bioinspired products. Aspirin, widely known for its heart attack prevention properties, originally used a compound extracted from willow bark.
The WHO’s inaugural Traditional Medicine Global Summit in August 2023 and the upcoming Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in 2024 highlight the increasing recognition of traditional medicine’s role in healthcare. However, this industry, along with the lives of those dependent on it, is imperiled by biodiversity loss and climate change.
Conservation efforts are crucial to preserving global biodiversity. This includes empowering indigenous communities and promoting sustainable medicinal plant use. In Europe, initiatives like EthnoHERBS are working to document and harness the therapeutic potential of plants in the Balkans, using advanced technologies like satellites and big data to monitor species and mitigate extinction risks.
The 2022 United Nation’s Biodiversity Conference (COP15) landmark agreement to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and oceans by 2030, and the World Economic Forum’s vision for 2035, which emphasizes environmental sustainability, are steps toward safeguarding nature’s pharmacy. However, these efforts must be accelerated to ensure the continuity of medical innovation derived from nature.