The degradation of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity is increasing at an alarming rate every year. Humans are certainly not the only reason for this, but they are the main contributors. The well-being of ecosystems affects our everyday lives - consumption and consumerism depend on natural resources. Everything humans use is derived from them, in seemingly indirect and direct ways. Yet despite the fact that humans are destroying the environment, many continue to and neglect to take important measures to protect it.
Biodiversity is affected by five main pressures: habitat loss and degradation, climate change, excessive nutrient load and pollution, over-exploitation, and invasive alien species. As mentioned before, humans are not the only force that influences the environment. Natural events such as volcanic eruptions can potentially disrupt an ecosystem’s balance as well. However, at least three out of five of the principle pressures are caused by humans, although it is arguable that we do play a crucial role in speeding climate change and transporting invasive species. Ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss is almost like the result of the other issues.
The impacts of this issue are important in many ways. Up to forty percent of the world’s economy depends on natural resources, and perpetually using these resources inevitably means that they will run out. The economy would suffer greatly. It wouldn’t be accustomed to using other sources of energy after depending on non-renewable resources for so long. Without biodiversity, large amounts of money have to be spent to provide services that were otherwise given to us free by nature. For example, oceans recycle sewage into nutrients, remove toxins from the water,...
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...umans destroy the environment, they have the ability to restore it.
Works Cited
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Through millions of years of evolution, well-balanced habitats have co-evolved to provide for the wide variety of species and their needs. Trees have adapted to weeds, weeds have adapted to the predation from herbivores, and so on up the food chain. Similar scenarios are seen throughout the world. Through the process of natural selection, specific species or broad species families will go extinct. However, these occurrences have largely been due to the natural flow and evolution of time. It wasn’t until recently that dominant species, such as humans, have taken the course of nature into their own hands.
Long-term survival of a species depends on its ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions (Murphy, 1994). Genetic diversity within a species, which has taken 3.5 billion years to evolve, makes adaptations to these changing environments possible. Unfortunately, the rate of extinction of genetically diverse organisms is rapidly increasing, thus reducing this needed biodiversity, largely due to the human impacts of development and expansion. What was an average of one extinction per year before is now one extinction per hour and extinct species numbers are expected to reach approximately one million by the year 2000 (WWW site, Bio 65). As a result governmental and societal action must be taken immediately!
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Extinction is no longer just a natural process. It is an enemy, slowly changing our world into a barren wasteland where life is as rare as a flower in the Arctic Circle's winter. The wolf, the tiger, the caribou, the elephant, the bison, the cheetah, the sequoia cactus, the redwood tree – all of these and so many more things are on the verge of disappearing from our planet forever. Extinction is the most pressing environmental issue of our time, because if it continues the way it is going without anything being done to counteract its causes and consequences, there will soon be no environment left for there to be debates about.
Pimm, Stuart “Opinion: The Case of Species Revival”, news.nationalgeographic.com, 13 March 2013, 20 May 2014
Thousands of species have become extinct over the last four decades as a result of changes in land use and as a result of global warming. Whether or not the millions of species can adapt and evolve to climate changes is debatable. As this brief overview will report, the human species is not adapting well to the changes. It must be remembered that increases in the levels of carbon dioxide are certainly responsible for the risk many species face, but so is the way land is used, e.g., rain forest destruction. There is a feedback loop wherein plant life and the climate are interdependent. Each affects the other. When forests are cut down, temperatures in that area will rise. Rising temperatures cause other plant life requiring cooler temperatures To die off.
According to World WildLife Fund, many ecosystems around the world are being destroyed, eliminating many plant and animal species that inhabit them (“Pollution”).
Biodiversity loss can lead to extinction, and hurt human life. It is our responsibility to take care of the environment. We bring in machines that harm the environment and destroy animal life. We need to limit ourselves on how much land and resources we consume. There are major issues that are causing species to become extinct and hurt our way of life and other animals do to the change in food chain.
There is no doubt that human activity is having a significant impact on our environment. These environmental impacts include depleting our natural resources, air and water pollution, climate change, destruction of habitats, and loss of biodiversity. Because of these growing concerns, we need to learn how to live sustainably. Living sustainably will allow us to conserve our limited resources more wisely so they will be available for future generations (Withgott & Brennan, 2011, Chapter 1).
Various plant and animal species depend on each other for what each offers and these diverse species ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. A healthy and solid biodiversity can recover itself from a variety of disasters. It is estimated that the current species extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be. Therefore, there is an urgent need, not only to manage and conserve the biotic wealth, but also restore the degraded ecosystems. c) Captivity breeding species can again be reintroduced into the wild.
Today biodiversity is being depleted by the loss of habitat, fragmentation of habitat, over exploitation of resources, human sponsored ecosystems , climatic changes, shifting cultivation, poaching of wild life etc. Biodiversity includes various other important things and services such as cultural, recreational, and spiritual nourishment that play a major role in maintaining our personal life as well as social life and since the human beings are enjoying all the benefits from biodiversity, they should take proper care for the preservation of biodiversity in all its form and good health for the future generation. We should conserve biodiversity because of its benefit for example services and biological resources which are essential to live our life on earth and maintain it at its threshold level and derive sustainable benefits for the present and future generation. Appropriate conservation and sustainable development strategies attempt to recognize this as being integral to any approach for preservation of biodiversity. Ever since the Conservation of Biodiversity has gained tremendous importance worldwide, steps have been taken for its
Nowadays it is common to read articles in newspapers and magazines regarding biodiversity issues. Human beings have been knowingly and unknowingly destroying biodiversity since their existence. Biodiversity is the measure of the variety of species of animals living in an area. Forests are usually areas with high biodiversity while deserts are the opposite. Human beings have always destroyed biodiversity either by deforestation, or by some other means. Biodiversity depletion is a natural phenomenon. But the present levels of biodiversity depletion are many times higher than the natural rate. Recently the levels of loss in biodiversity have started causing global concern. Some of the main causes for loss in biodiversity are alteration of habitats, increasing levels of pollution and human population growth.