Page 54 - WEF Reoprt 2020

Indigenous community livelihood
and culture risks
Indigenous communities often rely on their
diverse local ecosystems for food and other
resources: for example, 60% of the world’s
indigenous population uses largely plant-
based traditional medicines. And the rest of
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humanity relies on indigenous communities
to be stewards of ecosystems, protecting
and preserving environmental resources.
Indigenous peoples comprise less than 5%
of the world’s population but protect 80% of
its biodiversity.
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Beyond these known risks are unknowable
losses—the risk of losing species we have
not yet discovered that could have been
domesticated for crops or given rise to new
medicinal breakthroughs. For example,
the ocean represents a “virtually untapped
resource for discovery of novel chemicals
with pharmaceutical potential,” and recent
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bacterial samples from coastal sediments REUTERS/ARND WIEGMANN
grown under saline conditions have
yielded new antibiotic, antitumor and anti- causes. Insects are the main food source
inflammatory compounds. Another recently for many species higher in the food chain,
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discovered ocean organism, a rare genus such as birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.
of marine bacteria called Serinicoccus, was As the author of the study points out, “[if] this
shown to selectively destroy melanoma food source is taken away, all these animals
cancer cells. With continued loss of starve to death.”
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biodiversity, we may never know what we
have missed out on. Insects are also the world’s top pollinators:
75% of the 115 top food crops rely on
animal pollination, including nutrient-rich
Imagine if ... foods like fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds,

as well as cash crops such as coffee and
Many and varied ecosystems are in decline cocoa. Dwindling insect populations will
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or at risk of destruction from human activity. force farmers to seek alternative means of
While their complexity makes it very hard pollination, or shift to staple crops that
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to predict which losses would be most do not rely on pollinators. However, these
consequential, it is clear the stakes are high. crops—such as rice, corn, wheat, soybeans
Here we consider three potential ecosystem and potatoes—are often energy-dense,
collapses or extinctions that could have nutrient-poor and already over-consumed
profound impacts for humanity and the Earth. globally, contributing to an epidemic of
obesity and diet-related disease. Increasing
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Insect decline their prevalence in the food supply at the
A world without insects, according to one expense of fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds
entomologist, would be a “flowerless world could exacerbate this global health crisis (see
with silent forests, a world of dung and old Chapter 6, False Positive).
leaves and rotting carcasses accumulating
in cities and roadsides.” One recent study Approximately 1 million insect species have
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estimates that insects have declined by been documented, but “untold millions await
40% in recent decades (see Figure 4.1), discovery.” As with the broader community
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and a third are endangered. It identifies of species discussed above, it is impossible
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deforestation, urbanization, pollution and to know what humanity could lose from the
the widespread use of pesticides in extinction of insect species that are not yet
commercial agriculture as the principal known to science.

The Global Risks Report 2020 49