This is the Guardian. When it comes to the environment, we talk a lot about the climate crisis, fossil fuels, carbon emissions, but there's another ecological issue that's just as urgent.

Yesterday in Montreal, in Canada, countries came together to talk about the biodiversity crisis.

This conference is our chance to stop this orgy of destruction,

to move from discord to harmony, and to apply the ambition and action the challenge demands.

The COP15 UN Biodiversity Conference, not to be confused with the recent COP27 Climate Conference, will decide how to reverse

massive losses to the natural world.

Species are dying off as much as a thousand times more frequently than before the arrival of humans.

Earth's wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 69% in just under 50 years.

Almost 30% of mammals are at risk of extinction and once they're gone they're gone. So is COP15 our last big chance to make a difference?

And what will it take to turn the tide on the biodiversity crisis?

From the Guardian, I'm Madeline cold and into the humidity and biological

wonder of the tropics. And that's a very important ecosystem in itself where

we find all kinds of organisms like small salamanders, prongs, insects lay in the eggs in the water.

Okay, well not exactly the tropics.

The tropical environment of the palm house at Kew Gardens in London,

a vast Victorian greenhouse full of rainforest plants.

Sloughs really love eating those leaves.

If only there were some sloths here.

I'm sorry, don't have any at the moment.

Tendrils climbing upwards, leaves like giant fans spreading outwards and roots creeping their way along the soil.

And there's also a very interesting thing that if you look at the stems there's like a small holes all over the place and

that's where ants will leave and build their nests. I met Kew's director of

...