Biodiversity simply refers to the variety of life on Earth.
Moreover, the term recognizes the interdependency among all life forms. Canada is home to an estimated 140,000 plants, animals, micro-organisms, and fungi. Nearly half of all medicines used today originally came from wild organisms. It is estimated that natural habitat in Canada is being lost at a rate of 240 hectares every hour. Wilderness areas, particularly our forests and grasslands, have been destroyed or degraded by agriculture or urban development, resource extraction, and pollution, with little knowledge of, or consideration for, the effects on our wild plants and animals.