Vallée de la Biodiversité

What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity comprises all life forms on Earth, all the organisms which make up the living planet and their characteristics, humans included.

« [Biological diversity, or biodiversity, is] the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur. Diversity can be defined as the number of different items and their relative frequency. For biological diversity, these items are organized at many levels, ranging from complete ecosystems to the chemical structures that are the molecular basis of heredity. Thus, the term encompasses different ecosystems, species, genes, and their relative abundance. » ( Source: Reid & Miller, 1989)

« Biodiversity is the foundation of life on earth and one of the pillars of sustainable development. The richness and variety of life on earth makes possible the ecosystem services on which we depend: clean water, food, shelter, medicine and clothing... Without the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, we will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals. » M. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations, Message on the International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22, 2007.

The degradation of biological diversity

« Despite its extent, our scientific knowledge is limited and sometimes leads to negligence which endangers these resources [biological resources] at a frightening speed. The world is impoverished, even threatened by those losses. Every gene, every species, and every ecosystem that is damaged further reduces the planet’s capacity to withstand changes. For the poorest people on Earth, that flexibility is a question of life and death, and for all humanity, to lose those vital resources means a degradation of quality of life.

One of the major causes of that erosion is found in individual, communal [human], and national attitudes, who take those resources for granted. Popular thinking leads us to believe that, based on thousands of years of evolution, living creatures and biological diversity are inexhaustible. Except for a few isolated cases where communities, even civilizations, proved irresponsible and had to live with the harsh consequences of their actions, for most of us, just the idea that we may have reached the limits of biological diversity capability does not seem credible, or understandable. » Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary, Convention on Biological Diversity, in his preface to the Secretariat of the 2000 Convention on Biological Diversity. Ensuring continuity on earth: Convention on Biological Diversity: for nature and the well-being of humanity, 20 p. – free translation

Over the past few decades, we have noted that ecosystems and species are disappearing at an alarming rate, mainly due to human activity.

The threat to biological diversity:

Biodiversity in action
The conservation of biological diversity has become so important worldwide that several measures have been implemented over the past fifteen years.

1992	More than 180 countries, including Canada, signed the United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity.
1996	The Government of Québec developed its own strategy and action plan on biological diversity.
1999	The Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region established a regional strategy during the convention on the environment, monitored by the regional council on the environment and sustainable development.
2002	Political leaders around the world attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. They agreed to substantially reduce the rate of degradation of biological diversity by 2010.
2004	The Government of Québec renewed its Stratégie québécoise sur la diversité biologique (Québec strategy on biological diversity) 2004-2007.
2005	World Summit on Sustainable Development. The 2010 objective on biological diversity is henceforth an integral part of the Millenium Development Goals and, to underline its importance, the international community decided to declare 2010 International Year of Biodiversity.
2010	International Year of Biodiversity.

Regional biological diversity
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean is a region of the province of Québec with diverse ecosystems characterized by fresh, brackish, and salt waters; many lakes and rivers; teeming plains and mountains; mixed and boreal forests. The region moreover comprises exceptional ecosystems such as the Saguenay Fjord, but also areas recognized for their special characteristics: parks, wildlife habitats, ecological reserves (network of protected zones). Vallée de la biodiversité contains a few of these protected zones with the Saguenay and Monts-Valin national parks; the Saguenay marine park; the exceptional ecosystem of an ancient forest (on the north shore of the Sainte-Marguerite River, 20 km from the village of Sacré-Coeur); and the Marcelle-Gauvreau ecological reserve.

Biological diversity specific to Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean by species: