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A guide to using and protecting Australia's biodiversity
Environment Australia, 1998 (Revised 2001)
Biodiversity is the web of life –the thin skin of living things, including us, which inhabits the surface of planet Earth. Biodiversity includes humans, animals, plants, fungi and microbes - from dugongs to daisies, toadstools to termites. This variety of life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years. We don’t know how many species live on Earth – scientists have described about 1.8 million. But that’s just a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated 10 to 100 million which probably exist.