TY - JOUR T1 - SWCS policy position statement JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 204 LP - 205 VL - 51 IS - 3 AU - Soil and Water Conservation Society Y1 - 1996/05/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/51/3/204.abstract N2 - Biodiversity is an indicator of the relative stability of any particular community or ecosystem when viewed in the context of relative species richness, amount of water available, amount of physical space or volume, and other habitat and ecological niche constraints. Scientifically, biodiversity can be expressed as a function of the numbers of species within a given space, the differentiation within an ecosystem of ecological niches, or the development of trophic levels within the system. A sense of the biodiversity of any landscape can also be assessed through less formal observation: the number of bird species, the development of strata within forest communities, the presence of earthworms and other micro- and macrofauna in the soil, and the presence of species that for a developed food web are all indicators of the relative richness of species. Why is biodiversity important? Biodiversity is a major national and international biological and political issue. Public concern about biodiversity has often focused on endangered and threatened species, particularly those found in relatively undisturbed or exotic ecosystems, such as equatorial rainforests. However, declining diversity of crop and livcstock species and their standardization to better fit requirements of industrial agriculture also have serious implications for the resilience and … ER -