Ten things that should be self-evident

1. In whatever way you define biodiversity, humans are part of it.

2. Humans obtain services from ecosystems to survive, make a profit, or
increase their own well-being. In doing so, little effort is made to ensure
long-term (inter-generational) well-being or equity; the focus is on
maximising short-term well-being.
3. To extract services, humans often adapt and simplify existing ecosystems or
replace existing ecosystems with simpler ones. Humans thus increase their
well-being by reducing the diversity within and between ecosystems; that is,
by reducing biodiversity. Industrial agriculture, in particular, strives to
simplify to the extreme and to eliminate diversity.
4. Biodiversity loss and change is not a thing "out there" but an integral part of
the way human societies work. We cannot stop biodiversity loss by treating
it as an independent object. Biodiversity loss and accelerated change are
entirely anthropogenic, and are intimately bound into our economies and
societies.
5. Human demands on biodiversity are a function of the large and growing
global population, and the nature and intensity of the metabolism of societies.
The metabolism of industrial and post-industrial societies places a severe and
ever-growing demand on ecosystems around the planet. Most of the impact
on biodiversity of these societies is outside their political boundaries.
6. At a global scale, the human demands on the living world exceed the rate at
which nature replenishes itself. We are in global overshoot. The cost of this
overshoot, translated as permanent loss of services, is paid mainly by the
destitute, the unborn and by species other than humans.
7. Overshoot at a global scale can not, and will not, last. Biodiversity loss at
this scale is a symptom of an unsustainable human species.
8. Historically we know that human demands on the environment increase until
nature resists. Nature resists in ways that reduce human well-being, often
terminally for the societies concerned.
9. To avoid such an outcome, we must take responsibility for our future, that of
our children, and of the rest of the living world. We must rapidly abandon
the role of plunderers and predators and accept the role of gardeners with a
clear vision of the living world we would like our children to live in.
10. The most important challenge of all is to bring human societies into a
sustainable and mutually beneficial relationship with the living world. This
will not be easy and the path is not clearly signposted. Research, and active
political engagement, is vitally important if we are to meet this challenge.