The world is full of interdependencies. Every human activity has an impact on the environment and this alone would be enough to clear the field on the anthropic origin of the environmental disasters of our time. The more we advance with technologies and innovations, the more we must ask ourselves who and what must be done to avoid being overwhelmed by upheavals without remedies. The exhibition “In Praise of Diversity: A Journey Through Italian Ecosystems” opened at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome does not only want to represent the wealth of the Italian territory, but to stimulate a willingness to search for solutions. The exhibition is promoted by Roma Capitale, Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Padua and National Biodiversity Future Center (Nbfc).
With the curators Isabella Wise e Fabrizio Rufo there is a scientific committee composed of the Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi, Enrico Alleva, Charles Blasi, Stefano Boeri, Ferdinand Boero, Maria Chiara Carrozza, Luigi Fiorentino, Henry Johnni, Victor Lingiardi, Antonella Polimeni, Ling San. The Exhibition includes an exhibition project dedicated to biodiversity and health, investigating the fragility of the balance between ecosystems and the interdependence with the different forms of life on our planet. Bees are now recognized as sentinels of the environment and without their pollination the habitat simply collapses. And without a natural habitat, neither Elon Musk It can launch satellites or build electric cars.
Documents locked in drawers
The globalized world risks no longer having solutions to stop degradation. The recent UN Conference on Biodiversity in Colombia ended with a new rift between rich countries and developing countries. The document Kunming Global Biodiversity Framework (Km-Gbf) is from 2015, it contains the objectives of safeguarding the planet, but it has been put back in the drawers again. Thinking that the Rome exhibition can compensate for the failure of the UN summits may be a gamble, however it indicates a scientific and practical disposition on what to do. It focuses on the precariousness with which we all live and is an attempt to "activate forms of individual and collective responsibility". Where can we look for these forms of responsibility? Who has the tools to avoid biblical scenarios, which paradoxically even the Catholic Church deals with, starting with Pope Francesco ? The answer is: the community. It is in the post-industrial social organization that there are solutions, without creating alarmism. The social and economic cost of what is destroyed is generally hushed up by the protagonists of international conferences. Yet the updated estimates of the WWF, and not only them, indicate that the lack of biodiversity causes a drop in global GDP of 10% within the 2050. Something like $500 billion a year.
Natural resources are not infinite
Two thousand researchers from the National Biodiversity Future Center were mobilized to set up the Exhibition. They worked to put us in front of the main anthropogenic factors – climate change, invasive species, habitat fragmentation and pollution – that threaten our existence, the vision of unique health, theOne Health promoted by international organizations. The interdependencies are paying for the imbalances caused by super-accelerated economies, by the greed of political leaders, by speculative phenomena, by the use of polluting sources. More generally by the lack of a sense of future. The exhibition displays finds from scientific museums throughout Italy that tell the level of danger in which we find ourselves. The Italy explored by the curators has preserved in its genes, but also in its language and culture "traces of all the peoples who have inhabited the Peninsula over the millennia". In order not to let this millenary heritage die, it is necessary to trace a new path that embraces and above all knows how to hold together the interests of heterogeneous groups in society. The battle to grab natural resources for the new competitions is global. Whoever owns them today wins, but it is good to start thinking that they are not inexhaustible. And what is true for the genetic and cultural heritage of Italy should be true for the planet. A healthy ecosystem is the basis for thinking about tomorrow, while the bees continue to fly.
