In this episode of Live Sustainably, Anastasia unpacks the true meaning of biodiversity—not just forests and endangered species, but the intricate connections between all forms of life on Earth.

From wild potatoes preserving food security to fungi on sloth fur inspiring new antibiotics, this episode reveals how biodiversity directly impacts our health, medicine, climate, and future.

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This episode explores:

• How food diversity protects us from hunger and malnutrition

• Why biodiversity loss increases the risk of global disease

• How kelp forests outperform land trees in storing carbon

• The resilience—and fragility—of nature’s interconnected systems

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Biodiversity is not just life on Earth. It is life as a system—and we are part of it.

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Chapters:

00:00 - 01:28 - Introduction

01:28 - 05:23 - Haute cuisine, wild potatoes, and food security

05:23 - 08:12 - Sloth, fungi and novel antibiotics

08:12 - 11:04 - Kelp and sequestration of greenhouse gases

11:04 - 13:10 - Biodiversity like never before

13:10 - 13:24 - The end

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Sources & further articles to read:

• Earth.com, 2023. C. Sexton. "Sloths may hold a secret weapon against antibiotic resistance". Available online. 

• Harvard University, 2019. S. Hurlimann. "How Kelp Naturally Combats Global Climate Change". Available online. 

• MDPI, 2023. CR. MacNair, CN. Tsai, Steven T. Rutherford, M-W Tan. "Returning to Nature for the Next Generation of Antimicrobial Therapeutics". Antibiotics 2023, 12(8), 1267.

• United Nations Foundation, 2023. MJ Altman. "Biodiversity Explained: Facts, Myths, and The Race to Protect it". Available online.  

• NPR.org, 2012. E.Barclay. Public Health: "As Biodiversity Declines, Tropical Diseases Thrive". Available online.

• The Guardian, 2021 K. Latham. Biodiversity: "How biodiversity loss is jeopardising the drugs of the future". Available online​