May 21, 2025
How Biodiversity Supports Sustainable Development: Key Insights for 2025
The Hidden Infrastructure of Survival: Biodiversity and the SDGs
The forest speaks in many tongues—wind through leaves, birdcall in the canopy, the murmur of water weaving its way through soil. These are not just sounds, but a language of interconnection. And in the quiet listening, we come to understand: life does not exist alone. It thrives in relationships.
On this International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22, 2025, under the theme “Harmony with Nature and Sustainable Development,” we are called to remember what our ancestors once knew—that we belong to the Earth, not the other way around. That the health of a forest, a wetland, or a coral reef is inseparable from our own well-being.
To live in harmony with nature is not merely a poetic notion—it is a practical necessity. Every breath we take, every meal we eat, every drop of water we drink is made possible by biodiversity. These myriad forms of life—from the microscopic fungi threading through soil to the great elephants shaping savannas—form the web that supports human life. They are not background scenery. They are kin.
Biodiversity: Our Food, Water & Medicine
We often speak of development as something separate from nature, as if progress must come at the cost of the wild. But this is a false choice. Biodiversity is not a barrier to development; it is the very basis of it. Consider the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) laid out by the United Nations—zero hunger, good health, clean water, climate action. Not one of these is achievable without a thriving diversity of life.
Food security, for instance, is not only about plantations and yields. It’s about the pollinators that fertilize our orchards, the wild plants that hold genetic traits essential for plantation resilience, and the rich tapestry of soil organisms that keep our lands fertile. Each time a species disappears, we lose a unique strand in the tapestry—an ingredient that may one day heal or feed us.
Clean water—the essence of life—depends on ecosystems that filter, store, and regulate it. Forests capture rainfall and recharge aquifers; wetlands cleanse runoff and buffer floods. Yet, across the world, we are draining, paving, and poisoning these systems. When we degrade watersheds, we sever the veins through which life flows. The SDG for clean water (SDG 6) is only attainable if we protect the biodiversity within these landscapes.
And then there is health. More than half of modern medicines are derived from plants, fungi, and animals. Aspirin from willow bark. Cancer drugs from the Madagascar periwinkle. These are gifts from wild relatives, not synthetic miracles. We often marvel at technological breakthroughs, but forget that biotechnology itself stands on the shoulders of evolution’s billions of years of research. Every species lost may carry a compound that could save lives or unlock the next medical revolution. As E.O. Wilson warned, “The loss of biodiversity is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive.”
Hosachiguru : Farming for the Future
Climate change, too, is deeply entwined with biodiversity. Forests are among our greatest allies in the fight against warming—they capture carbon, regulate rainfall, and stabilize temperatures. Healthy ecosystems act as buffers against floods, droughts, and storms. But these systems must be whole to function; fractured landscapes cannot protect us. Climate action (SDG 13) and life on land (SDG 15) are bound by this truth: resilience lies in richness.
So how do we move from destruction to restoration? How do we make space for wildness while feeding and sheltering ourselves?
One answer lies in reimagining our relationship with land. At Hosachiguru, a collective of earth stewards working across southern India, this vision takes root in the soil—literally. Our managed farmlands are designed not only to produce food but to regenerate ecosystems. Here, the principles of permaculture and agroforestry shape a landscape where trees and crops grow in harmony, where birdsong returns, and the earth heals.
We build bird habitats—perches for raptors, feeders for seed-eaters, and nesting boxes for insect-loving songbirds like chickadees and swallows. These birds help control pests naturally, reducing the need for harmful chemicals. Our farms also combat invasive species, protecting native flora and fauna by planting native and heirloom varieties, they attract local pollinators and preserve genetic diversity. In this way, agriculture becomes an ally of conservation, not its adversary.
Water management is treated as sacred. Through the use of swales, trenches, and riparian buffers, Hosachiguru ensures that every drop of rain is cherished—soaking into the land, replenishing aquifers, and sustaining life.
Our practice of regenerative agroforestry creates layered landscapes rich in plant and animal life. Spiraling gardens, habitat ponds, and hedgerows become sanctuaries for bees, butterflies, dragonflies—and for wonder.
But perhaps the most vital restoration is that of soil. Healthy soil teems with life: bacteria, fungi, earthworms, nematodes—all working in concert to cycle nutrients and store carbon. Hosachiguru nurtures this hidden world through no-till farming, composting, and mulching. In doing so, we foster the conditions for biodiversity to thrive from the ground up.
Speaking Earth’s Language, Living Its Wisdom
None of this happens in isolation. People are part of the ecosystem, not apart from it. When local communities benefit economically from thriving biodiversity—through sustainable harvesting, eco-tourism, or payments for ecosystem services—they become its fiercest protectors. Development aligned with conservation becomes not only possible but powerful.
We often ask: What can I do? The answer is not only in grand gestures but in the daily choices to restore, protect, and listen. To teach our children the names of birds. To let a patch of garden grow wild. To demand policies that honor the living Earth.
Because every species is a story. Every habitat is a library. And as we lose them, we lose not just beauty, but knowledge, medicine, stability—and possibility. As Robin Wall Kimmerer reminds us, “To be native to a place, we must learn to speak its language.” And the language of the Earth is biodiversity—complex, interwoven, sacred.
Let us learn to speak it again.
Sustaining biodiversity is sustaining life, for all of us.
