LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: While the global population's set to top nine billion by mid-century, non-human life is dying at rates not seen in 60 million years. Scientists are calling it the sixth great extinction, a catastrophic drop in the number of the world's plant and animal species. The UN's holding a major biodiversity meeting in Japan next week, but some critics predict it'll end in Copenhagen-style failure.

In a moment we'll cross to Nagoya to speak with Dr Ahmed Djoghlaf, the executive secretary of the UN convention on biodiversity. First, this report from Margot O'Neill.

MARGOT O'NEILL, REPORTER: The figures are staggering. UN scientists estimate that the world is losing 200 species every day - that's every day. And here's another one for you: the total number of vertebrates on the planet - that's mammals, reptiles, fish, birds and amphibians - plummeted by a third between 1970 and 2006.

And while Australia has one of the richest and most unique range of species, we also have one of the highest extinction rates.

But because most of us live in cities, isolated from the rhythms of nature, we don't seem to notice the carnage. It may be the International Year of Biodiversity, but research shows that most people don't know what biodiversity is or why it's important.

Simone Chetcuti is a typical young urban professional working and living in inner-city Sydney, where her backyard is a tiny patch of green. She admits she has little to do with the wonders of Australian nature.

When was the last time you saw a koala?

SIMONE CHETCUTI, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT: Not on TV? Mmm. Oh, look, maybe in a zoo as a child, but not for a long, long time, yeah.

MARGOT O'NEILL: What do you understand by the term biodiversity and do you know whether it's important?

SIMONE CHETCUTI: To be honest, not really, no. I don't sort of understand what impact it has on my life or I don't actually really understand what it means.

MARGOT O'NEILL: At our invitation, biologist Professor Richard Kingsford has come to visit in a bid to explain why biodiversity is not just a conservation issue for weekend bushwalkers, but how all animals and plants and micro-organisms provide a life support system for everyone, including city residents like Simone Chetcuti.

He begins in her pantry which breakfast cereal, which comes from crops which need pollinating, except that pollinating insects like bees are dying off.

RICHARD KINGSFORD, UNSW: Oh, look, there's a huge problem. I mean, so much of our biodiversity, more than 90 per cent is invertebrates. And obviously the insects are a very important part of that. And we're seeing things like bees have suffered major problems in terms of disease, so their numbers are crashing.

And so people have to do their own pollinating by hand, which is almost impossible to do on a grand scale. So, really we do need these insects to be out there pollinating our agricultural crops.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Then there's this simple can of tuna, except that blue fin tuna stocks are also dying off.

RICHARD KINGSFORD: We've got tuna, for example, which is one of our most overharvested resources. Most tuna populations are in big trouble. So if we don't actually manage these sorts of things sustainably, our food resources, then it just won't be there for future generations.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Then there's the medicine shelf.

RICHARD KINGSFORD: About 70 per cent of the recent drugs in the last 25 years have come from natural products. And given the problems that we've had with antibiotics and resistance to antibiotics, people are worried about what the future will be, and you can imagine what it would be like without having antibiotics.

And so there's a sort of frantic search in biodiversity world to try and find the latest antibiotics and look at things like frog skins, that seem to have natural antibiotics, but a lot of our current antibiotics are losing their potency, ones that have come from soil fungi. And so the big challenge is where are we going to find, from the great biodiversity larder, our future medicines to guard us against the sorts of diseases that we currently have.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Professor Kingsford's home seminar seems to have swayed Simone Chetcuti.

SIMONE CHETCUTI: I didn't realise the impact that is has in terms of medicines and some certain foods, so that concerns me, and I guess probably the biggest thing for me is why don't we know more about this?

RICHARD KINGSFORD: I don't think our modern world allows us to be connected with the things that we eat, the medicine that we need, or where the water comes from. Everything is, if you like, packaged. It's almost as if you're totally disconnected with where that product has come from. And I think that's a real challenge, particularly as we become more urbanised and everything's at the supermarket, if you like, and that's all we need.

MARGOT O'NEILL: Some economists are now costing biodiversity in a bid to ram home its irreplaceable value, such as the price of replacing natural services like insect pollination or forests cleaning the air. One report estimates that the loss of natural capital like this is already between $2 and $4.5 trillion a year. But signatories to the UN Biodiversity Convention, including Australia, have failed to meet their targets to stem the loss of species.

RICHARD KINGSFORD: Look, it is depressing. I mean, I think those of us who've been working, our lives are all through this and trying to understand the connections and we think, "When are we actually going to get this? When are we going to understand that our life support systems are crumbling?"

MARGOT O'NEILL: Government leaders are due to meet in Nagoya, Japan next week to thrash out a new agreement. Australia's Environment Minister Tony Burke says he won't be attending.