The term biodiversity was originally coined by scientists to draw attention to the destruction of tropical forests. Biological diversity or species diversity has fascinated naturalists since Antiquity, but in fact very few have been interested in it for a long time. The focus is on groups that are arbitrarily declared to be representative of biodiversity. It is important to stress that popular culture is still pervaded by the fixist vision of a nature in equilibrium with a stable number of species. With regard to biodiversity loss, the species metric is most commonly used. It is a simple indicator, but the typological species which is most commonly used is an artificial category, representative of another era of biology, when only morphological description was available for identifying species. The decline of biodiversity speaks more to citizens than the economic debates around sustainable development.
