An emblematic article in Nature magazine[7] took stock of the major threats facing the planet and humanity today, and listed them: the impacts of climate disruption, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, disruption of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, drinking water use, chemical pollution, aerosol air pollution, agricultural intensification and biodiversity loss. The latter appears to be a major issue. The authors demonstrate the planet's limits, recommend that humanity preserve its margins of adaptation, and raise the question of the viability of the "produce more and more, against the living system" model. Is the sustainable development we are constantly told about sustainable for long? Biodiversity must be protected for the obvious reasons of maintaining varied production (and thus being able to respond in good time to aggressions!), defending against the proliferation of invasive species, for its fundamental role in the great balances of geo- and bio-spheres, for its food supply to mankind, its supply of varied molecules (pharmacological, probes, cosmetics...), and so on. The synthesis report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment classified biodiversity services as provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting[8].
Biodiversity is disappearing at an alarming rate, and is still accelerating as a result of the factors mentioned above. The state of biodiversity, the pressures it is under and the benefits humans can derive from it are changing considerably. Some are even announcing a sixth great extinction crisis[9] or a set of civilizations to be "recalibrated"[10]. Can we avoid collapse? Major international conferences have been held, in Rio in 1992 and 2012, in Johannesburg in 2002, in France in 2005 and 2010, in Nagoya in 2010, and so on. France organized two environmental conferences in 2012 and 2013 during which biodiversity issues were addressed, and is now preparing a biodiversity law associated with the new laws on energy transition and ecological transition. The Red List of Threatened Species is published annually by theInternational Unionfor Conservationof Nature(IUCN), and the list is constantly growing. The list is constantly growing, but it mainly covers plants and emblematic animal species (tigers, pandas, polar bears, etc.), as we have little information on all the others, from insects and marine invertebrates to fungi and lichens.
