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Importance of environmental policy essay
Importance of environmental policy essay
Ecosystem diversity
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Biodiversity
INTRODUCTION
Franck and Brownstone define biological diversity as 'the variety and variability of living organisms and the biological communities in which they live' (36). Decades of progress in both the scientific and political arenas have advanced environmental legislation to protect biodiversity at not only the ecosystem level, but for specific species and genetic material as well. Research has shown the importance of every organism and their role in the global ecosystem, and legislation has gradually matured to protect not only species which may become endangered, but the habitats they need to survive as well. Growing consciousness surrounding environmental issues has enabled these protections to be implemented through various international agreements as well as through the adoption into the domestic legislation of States, however conflicts often occur when policymakers attempt to equate biological value with economic benefits. Environmental concerns will incessantly produce an atmosphere of compassionate arguments and harsh demands, yet the following discussion suggests optimism as organizational networks are becoming stronger and are able to address many more interests than before. While negotiations have previously defined the environment and economic markets as adversaries, international agreements like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1975 may ultimately prove to use the market as an enforcement incentive rather than an engine for environmental destruction.
SPECIES PROTECTION
As the huge, lumbering animal leads her young through the grasslands of the African savannah, she has no idea that behind any given tree...
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Our system today is inherently opposed to developing a relationship with the land because it depends on evidence in terms of monetary worth. “One basic weakness in a conservationist system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value” (246). How much is a wildflower or a songbird worth? Therefore, this infinitely complex ecological system, which depends upon an unforeseeable amount of community-shaping mechanisms, tends to become increasingly diseased. “It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial values, but that are (as we know) essential to its healthy functioning” (252).
More species than ever are threatened and Wilson alarmingly predicts we are heading towards the sixth extinction; a biological holocaust (Hiss, 2014). Biodiversity conservation is also a political and social concern and many recent studies suggest that in-situ conservation techniques that involve local communities are more effective at reducing biodiversity loss (Méndez-López et al., 2014). This would suggest that when we consider the potential success of the Half Earth Plan we need to also need to consider the social element as it has been found that financial incentives (Parkhurst et al., 2002; Méndez-López et al., 2014) and community involvement is crucial for biodiversity conservation (Sarkar & Montoya, 2011). Many conservation programmes have been initiated to tackle the problem of biodiversity loss but methods to assess the effectiveness of these projects often focus on an individual indicator species (Laycock et al., 2009). It is hard to put an economic value on preserving a particular species which is why evaluation techniques need to combine ecological indicator techniques with social and economic measures (Laycock et al., 2009). (Drechsler, 2011) describes an ecological
The latter half of the twentieth century was host to the greatest and most widespread advancements in environmental awareness in human history. It was during this time that people began to consider the effects of their polluting cars and their wasteful habits. People began to realize that something must be done to curb humans’ negative impacts on their surroundings and thus the environmental movement was born. One of the most important factors that resulted from this expansion of environmental consciousness occurring over the last several decades has been the protection of endangered species. Much has been done in the legal world to ensure the continued longevity of our planet’s diversity, including two major policies: CITES and the Endangered Species Act. Each of these policies has approached the welfare of endangered species in a different way, with varying degrees of success. Each strategy will be summarized and analyzed, beginning with the CITES treaty, as it was enacted before the Endangered Species Act. However, before examining the function and effectiveness of each strategy, it is important to understand the history behind each one of them.
How life came to be is a mystery that baffled the minds of even the smartest researchers. Although the researchers found no definite answers throughout the centuries, they had created many theories that could explain the origin of modern organisms. Evolution is a prominent theory among others, as supported by ancient ancestry, fossil evidence, and genetics. Evolution is the correct theory because the evidence, which is ancestry, fossil evidence, and genetics, proves evolution to have a solid argument.
Mankind is responsible for the decrease in population in many species; human development tends to upset the balance of local ecosystems. It is worth the time and hard work of the government to maintain biodiversity because of how crucial healthy ecosystems are for the profit of the country and the well-being of the planet. The act was designed to conserve the variety in wildlife for the decades to come. Due to the protection measures provided by the legislation, the decline of some species has been halted or even reversed. However, faults are present in the law that hinder the act’s effectiveness and efficiency in the meeting of its goal.
The term biodiversity refers to the variety of life on Earth at all its levels, from genes to ecosystems, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that sustain it. Biodiversity includes not only species we consider rare, threatened, or endangered, but every living thing — even organisms we still know little about, such as microbes, fungi, and invertebrates.
The major concern is that the distribution of biodiversity wealth is uneven around the world. In the globe there are only 17 countries recognised as Mega diverse (rich in biodiversity or diversity among species) regions. India is one among the 17 Mega diverse countries. These 17 countries hold 70% of the total biodiversity resources (Jacobs, 2014). These countries are mostly either least developing countries (LDCs) or developing countries. The people in those countries develop economically, socially and culturally by the continuous and sustainable use of such resources for several hundreds of years. Still there are several communities which depend on the biological resource for their “physical and cultural survival” than economic values (Amiott, 2003). The unfair distribution of resources made the indust...
Myers, Norman. "The Rich Diversity of Biodiversity Issues," in Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources, ed. Reaka-Kudla, Wilson, and Wilson. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 1997.
The soft shambling of the tree branches seemed to whisper to him, though the wind were using them to talk. He turned his back to the manor with it's shining fields of flowing grass, and faced the slightly darker forest. He began heading in the direction of the town he had seen. The woodland's pillars shown dark red in the sunlight, an almost blood like maroon. The trees resembled birch trees in bark and texture, but the branches extended so thickly that Shin had at first had mistaken it for a grove of oaks. He shuffled his feet through the thin layer of leaves covering the ground. He remembered walking through the park on his home from school as a first year, how he had then shuffled his feet through the leaves, perhaps to feel peace.
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.
Shah, Anup. “Why Is Biodiversity Important? Who Cares?” Global Issues. 19 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 April. 2014
It is known that the world relies on capital. Without it the economy would collapse leading to war, famine, and death. Wildlife is an integral part of the world's economy. The world's populatio...
In changing the way environmental management was framed, conservation efforts now sought to shelter the natural world from interference by human activities (Wendell, 2002), and now understood nature had intrinsic value other than economic gain (Meffe et al., 2002). Hence, conservationists progressed toward a preservationist approach, which works “[…] to maintain or prevent the loss of biodiversity by preserving and restoring species and habitats threatened by the activity of people” (Wendell, 2002 p. X). This new point of view additionally changed the definition of ecosystems to account for its “responses to manipulation [that] are not linear, but involve thresholds; and there are many unforeseen consequences and externalities” (Meffe et al., 2002 p.X). The historical timeline of environmental management take on the same progression toward a more egalitarian approach to natural conservation in both authors’ theses (Wendell, 2002; Meffe et al., 2002), and Meffe et al. (2002) expands on the shift by exploring a new definition of ecosystems as a dynamic system with non-equilibrium and acknowledges that disturbances are needed in order to maintain the balance of the biodiversity. As the supply needs of
Social ecology is the conceptual principles for knowing the outcomes and relations of the many diverse individual and environmental factors. Social ecology is defined as the study of people within an environment, which have influence on one another. It’s believed to be the earth’s societies reflection upon itself, exploring, discovering, and considering its future (Gutkind, 1974). Factors of social ecology may include the infirmities of age, an increase of population, natural disasters, technology and the growth of society. Within social ecology it is important to notice which people are unable to see the environmental crisis. This movement is placing all the responsibility for destroying the earth on humans as they are overpopulating the planet. There is no possible way of convincing all humans to change their way of life (Bookchin, 1995). However, rather have humans distinguish and eliminate previous forms of control and destruction (Bookchin, 1995). The main standard of social ecology is the fact that problems occur from inherent social issues (Dogan, Rokkan, 1974). These problems cannot be understood without acknowledging the social issues. The development, of certain technologies, social characteristics, cities and science all has caused a vast majority of problems to the earth, which leads back to humans.
As what is mentioned in class, forests are composed of different parts such as trees, plants, soil, water and various kinds of animals. However, simply having those different parts does not mean a forest is running as a system. There must be some connectors connecting every part of forest. As a result, biodiversity, a crucial element ensuring the interconnectivities among different parts of forest are in normal condition, plays an important role in forests.