“We have to link the species extinction with the global climate change and understand that it’s an existential problem that threatens the future of humanity”

Awarded the 16th BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology, Gerardo Ceballos reflects on the scale of the biodiversity crisis and the urgency of protecting ecosystems. Drawing on decades of fieldwork, he describes how species decline acts as a warning signal for human well-being and underscores the responsibility of science in guiding decisions that ensure a sustainable future.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Ecology and Conservation Biology has gone in this sixteenth edition to Gerardo Ceballos and Rodolfo Dirzo, “for establishing that current species extinction rates in many groups of organisms are much higher than throughout the preceding two million years.”