They get down on their hands and knees in wheat fields without finding "a single seedling." They see landscapes emptied, species vanish – even among the most common. They document phenomena that defy comprehension: 800 million birds have disappeared from Europe in 40 years, French regions have lost an average of 11 species of butterfly in 20 years and a million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction worldwide. Yet they also see large birds of prey returning due to conservation policies and marine reserves thriving with life where protection is truly enforced.

Through their fieldwork and research, biodiversity scientists have a front-row seat to the destruction of nature. Reports describing the seriousness of the problem pile up on their desks. Yet the dozen or so researchers and naturalists interviewed all agree that the subject remains largely ignored, and is even today the subject of clear setbacks. "A true awareness would be one that leads to action. But that doesn't exist at all," said Vincent Bretagnolle, an ecologist and research director at the Chizé Center for Biological Studies (part of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS). "I have the feeling that the more tangible and massive the effects of biodiversity erosion become, the more there is a retreat in mobilization on these issues," lamented Didier Gascuel, a professor of marine ecosystems at Agrocampus Ouest. "The political parties that deny the crisis are getting stronger with it, and that's despairing."

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