In their opening remarks to the DLD Nature 2024 conference, hosts Maria Furtwängler and DLD founder Steffi Czerny make clear that stopping biodiversity loss and mitigating climate change are essential for all life on planet Earth.
“Nature and biodiversity are not a nice-to-have”, Steffi Czerny emphasizes. “They are the very core of our existence, of our survival on the planet.”
Investing in nature is not just essential – it also offers significant economic opportunities, as nature-based solutions can generate jobs and business value.
The cost-benefit-equation is simple, Maria Furtwängler points out. “Can we afford not to invest into nature?”, she asks, prompting the audience to consider both human suffering and the rapidly increasing cost of extreme weather, the loss of pollinating insects and the negative effects of ecosystem degradation.
“We owe every glass of fresh water, every breath we take, every apple we eat to functioning ecological systems”, Maria Furtwängler emphasizes. “So whenever yet another species dies or wherever biodiversity collapses, our economic stability, our security, and our health are at risk.”
