Biodiversity not just relates to a count of all the living species, intra-species, and all communities prevailing in the biosphere. Biodiversity also does not merely relate to the richness of life. Biodiversity is not just about its economic attributes. Biodiversity is also not just the spice of life. Biodiversity is the very reality of the mysterious journey of Evolution. Biodiversity prevailing in the biosphere is the most wonderful story of nature’s Evolution. Biodiversity is the most pristine ‘product’ of Evolution. By evolving the diversity of various genotypes of a species, Evolution struck sustainability for all species. By ensuring the sustainability of the species, Evolution ensured the sustainability of all communities. Biodiversity is the glory of Evolution. Can you imagine Evolution described without the biodiversity in its fold? Look at the very story of Evolution, and you will find it enriching the biosphere by constantly adding biodiversity to it. Our world is a wonderful outcome of biodiversity. Biological Evolution continued adding to newer and newer biological species and in due course of the phenomenon, the human species came into existence.

The history of evolution reveals that life on Earth has gradually gone enriching itself by adding more and more varieties to it. A variety of organisms as of today exhilaratingly blossoms in the biosphere. The organisms are divided into three broad categories based on their distinctive characteristics, viz. plants, animals, and microorganisms. The other broad categories all the organisms on Earth are placed in are the five kingdoms, viz. Protista, Monera, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia. These kingdoms encompass living organisms based on their cell type (prokaryotic or eukaryotic), cell number (unicellular or multicellular), genetic recombination type (binary fission, asexual or sexual type), or feeding behavior or mode of nourishment (autotrophic or heterotrophic).

Agrobiodiversity is a key resource for humanity. All of the food retirements humanity depends on are fulfilled by agrobiodiversity. Not only this, fodder, fiber, firewood, and many other basic needs of humankind are also met by agrobiodiversity. Human’s dependence on agriculture - not only for survival and sustenance but also for socioeconomic progress, maintenance and celebration of cultural ethos, physical, intellectual, emotional, ethical, and aesthetic development, and psychological contentment and happiness - is inevitable. Agrobiodiversity is critical for food security for the entire humanity as well as for the food sovereignty of a country. If we are to usher in a sustainable future - that is, a future to be witnessed by healthy, vibrant, and happy humanity (Singh 2019) - there is no choice other than protecting, conserving, and augmenting agrobiodiversity.

All of nature’s biodiversity is not visible. Biodiversity can also not be studied and/ or understood by looking at and analyzing it with the naked eye. A great proportion of the planet’s biodiversity flourishes in the ecosystems not directly accessible to us and the organisms in the sizes our eyes cannot record. The soil biodiversity is more interesting and more varied than we have understood and appreciated. The biodiversity in the soil - together with the physical environment - constitutes what we can call the pedosphere. Biodiversity in the pedosphere is distinguishable from that of the biodiversity above the soil surface. One is nonplussed by an understanding of some of the unbelievable features and functions of the pedosphere biodiversity. The Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) held on the occasion of the historical Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 underlined the significance of biodiversity conservation for various tangible and non-tangible benefits as well as one of the key factors for sustainability. However, the conservation of soil biodiversity for realizing sustainability

Nutrition is the basis for life to prosper and sustain in the biosphere. There are two modes of nutrition in all species: self-nourishment and crossnourishment. Self-nourishment goes on in the category of organisms known as autotrophs. Cross-nutrition is maintained by the category of consumers categorized as heterotrophs. The autotrophs nourish themselves by utilizing inorganic molecules and energy available in nature, while the heterotrophs derive the nutrients that the autotrophs ‘manufacture’ for themselves. In other words, the heterotrophs derive nutrients from organic molecules. These organic molecules are derived either from the autotrophs directly or from the consumers dependent on autotrophs. Autotrophs derive energy in its free form (e.g. light) or that available in inorganic molecules (e.g., CO, 

A large number of genetic resources, species, and ecosystems are under severe threat. Many species have gone extinct and many more are being pushed towards extinction. Most of the ecosystems have also gone into what we can call functional extinction. The major factors becoming threats to biodiversity are anthropogenic. Human activities, in essence, are not benevolent for biodiversity to flourish in natural systems. Burgeoning human populations are the root cause of biodiversity destruction. Changing human lifestyles fed by a materialistic economy are further acting as catalysts for the ever-increasing human populations to destroy biodiversity evolved over millions of years amid terrestrial conditions favorable for the origin and prevalence of an astonishing variety of life forms on Earth. There is hardly any threat to biodiversity due to natural factors except those inherent in the designs of natural evolution. A species at a certain point of time in its evolutionary history is destined to vanish, but the void in nature created due to this loss is filled by the evolution of new life forms. Not only the void is filled, the nature gradually goes on enriching itself 

Most of the ecosystems prevailing on Earth have ceased to be virgin. They are now modified following anthropogenic designs. The Blossoming of a community in its climax stage is a rare sight. As human intervention with nature has gone on increasing, all types of biodiversity - genetic, species and community, and alpha, beta, and gamma - have been put under stress. The Earth has already lost much of its diversity due to anthropogenic factors and now it seems to be under severe stress due to climate change, which is also largely due to human-induced environmental disruptions. Continuous loss of biodiversity at an alarming rate is posing a serious threat to life on earth. With this dismal state of the environment, we cannot usher in a sustainable future. We do not have the right to snatch the future from our younger generations. The Earth belongs to our children more than it does to us. The Earth belongs to future generations more than it does to present generations. Conservation of biodiversity is a matter of ethics. Ethics has the human face of biodiversity. Economic attributes of biodiversity have importance, but ethics of life 

Sustainability does not denote a fixed state of things. It is a dynamic phenomenon: a phenomenon that tends to advance towards a higher state of being. The range of a journey of sustainability extends from nothing to everything, from a simple system to a more complex system, or from an unstable or less stable system to a stable or more stable system. Speaking in ecological terms, the transformation of unproductive desert land into a forest in ecological climax over time is how the phenomenon of sustainability works. The term ‘sustainable development’ was first of all used in 1980 in the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN-UNEP-WWF 1980). However, this term was brought into the focus of the world for the first time in the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) Report, popularly known as the Brundtland Commission Report Our Common Future in 1987. Sustainable Development in the WCED Report has been defined as Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

Glossary Adaptation an evolutionary process of creating anatomical, physiological, and/ or behavioral changes enhancing the abilities of a population to thrive in a particular environment. Alfa diversity the diversity within a community, that is, the diversity of the organisms sharing a common community. Autotroph an organism with the ability to synthesize its food (organic molecules) using CO2 and H2O and energy from sunlight (photoautotroph) or inorganic molecules like H2S (chemoautotroph). Beta Diversity the diversity between communities. Biosphere portion of the Earth that supports life, or the total of all ecosystems of the Earth, or the total global ecosystem. Carbon sequestration the mechanism that involves the removal of atmospheric CO2 to be captured, secured, stored elsewhere, and/ or used for some specific purpose. In the context of climate change mitigation, the purpose of carbon sequestration is to strike a global carbon balance so that the enhanced global warming effect of CO2 could be nullified or minimized.