If current patterns of development are maintained which regularly destroy or significantly diminish the presence of other forms of life, humanity progressively undermines its own existence as a part of the global ecosystem. With the loss of species humanity also loses genetic possibilities for fighting disease, in people and in food crops, as well as potential new sources of food.
Loss of genetic resources, floods, deterioration in quantity and quality of water supply, decline in food supply, loss in productive soils, and loss in potentially useful biological resources are some of the detrimental effects of the reduction in or loss of biological diversity.
The U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity arose out of the 1992 Earth Summit. Only four of the U.N's member nation are non-signatories at 2020: Andorra, the Vatican, South Sudan, and the USA.