A recent report by UNEP and Interpol estimated that between 50 to 90 per cent of logging in key tropical countries of the Amazon basin, Central Africa and South East Asia is being carried out by organized crime. This threatens not only attempts to eradicate poverty and deforestation but also efforts to combat climate change.

We have a responsibility to first understand how climate change impacts all peoples of the world. Then, we must consider the individual and collective choices and actions that can move us toward a sustainable future.

Real results will emerge when we realize the power of combined individual actions and voices to effect change.

The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century.

We are at a pivotal moment in our shared history. The global goals of a healthy planet, social equality, and economic opportunity for all are within reach. But we cannot prevaricate.

Even if we act immediately, the world is doomed to lose many of its animal and plant species and this inturn will reduce the ability of ecosystems to deliver vital services to human populations. The Red List gives all of us a practical tool for raising awareness of the biodiversity crisis and for forging new partnerships within the international community.

Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less, dependent on nature’s services in a world of close to seven billion people.