Natural habitats used by man or tampered with tend to become unsatisfactory or unsuitable for the native wild species. As I learned in class, habitat loss is the number one threat to modern primates. Not only do primates suffer, but habitat loss is the greatest threat to various parts of life on this planet that humans have caused. Simply speaking, along with habitat destruction, ties in the extinction of diverse species. “Biodiversity as a whole forms a shield protecting each of the species that together compose it, ourselves included. What will happen if, addition to the species already extinguished by human activity, say, 10 percent of those remaining are taken away? Or 50 percent? Or 90 percent? As more and more species vanish or drop to …show more content…
Wilson proposes a solution to this problem in his book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. The message is plain and simple: In order preserve biodiversity, Wilson proposes to devote half of the Earth’s land as a human-free natural reserve. “The current conservation movement has not been able to go the distance because it is a process. It targets the most endangered habitats and species and works forward from there. Knowing that the conservation window is closing fast, it strives to add increasing amounts of protected space, faster and faster, saving as much as time and opportunity will allow” (Wilson, 2016). What I hope to cover is to highlight the pros and cons of Wilson’s proposal, what other ideas can be done to solve the problem, and why humanity should be more involved with preserving the life around them.
Can the world really set aside half of the Earth’s land to preserve both wild and plant life? The protection of wildlife is a significant importance to the quality of life, with the loss of species – there may be severe consequences. Wilson’s concern is many species being destroyed before scientists have a chance to identify them. “Humanity is losing the race between the scientific study of global diversity and the obliteration of countless still-unknown species” (Wilson, 2016). This is where I see a positive light in Wilson’s
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How would Wilson find the money to fund his idea? How much would it cost to set aside not just a small portion of land, but half of the Earth’s land? While I feel the Half-Earth proposal has its ups and downs, the idea has already begun in some ways. There are many regions of the world who have set aside land, in order to preserve wildlife. “Take a look at Namibia. In that nation, seventy-nine wildlife conservancies cover about 20 percent of the country, and 41 percent of Namibia’s land is communal. And, according to the World Bank, as of 2012, Costa Rica has placed 26.9 percent of its terrestrial area in protection” (Andrews,
Leopold would most likely approve of the work being done to preserve Gorongosa National Park and would agree with Wilson in that nature is our home and we should treat it as such, but Leopold, unlike Wilson, argues that it is our moral obligation, and not just our pleasure, to respect nature. Additionally, Wilson seems to focus specifically on the plants and animals that make up an ecosystem, but Leopold extends his focus to non-living components such as soil and water because they are instrumental in maintaining the integrity of land communities. Leopold might urge Wilson to make sure that he is not simply educating people at Gorongosa, but really help them genuinely understand land ethics. This way, humans can evolve a sense of praise and approval for preserving the integrity and beauty of the biotic community (262), and social disapproval for doing the exact
As the international community focuses on climate change as the great crisis of our era, it is ignoring another looming problem: the global crisis in land use. Seed Magazine
two-thirds of all primates and that landscape in shrinking every time people cut down the trees.
Landscape fragmentation can impose devastating and irreversible consequences on the biodiversity of ecosystems. Because of the conflicting interests between ecology and human economic benefit, it has become increasingly important to find solutions for a harmonic balance. It is imperative for people to recognize the impacts of biodiversity loss and increased extinction of many species. These impacts must be understood in order to protect landscapes and the immense biodiversity they contain. Raising environmental consciousness through education and public cooperative efforts, as well as promoting resource conservation and changing consumptive patterns, are just a few ways that we can begin to protect biodiversity.
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.
While the human population continues to grow so does the need for land to contain the growth. In man’s attempt to fulfill this need we find that we are encroaching on lands used for diverse wildlife and plant-life. The problem comes from the fact that when man moves into these new areas he usually takes over and in the process damages or destroys ecosystems that were in place. This loss of ecosystems equates to the loss of animal species and also plant species. This is happening in our world at an alarming rate. One issue that should be sending up a big red flag is that no one knows how the loss of these plants and animals is going to affect our planet. Luckily there are groups established such as the World Heritage Group which work to preserve these areas and unique ecosystems along with their plant and animal life. One such place is the Belize Barrier Reef platform which lies on the Atlantic-Caribbean coast of Belize. The Reserve was inscribed as a natural World Heritage property in 1996 and belongs to the Central American biogeographically province. It is made up of the following areas: Bacalar Chico National Park and Marine Reserve, the northernmost part of Ambergris Caye, the west area of Chetumal Bay, Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Half Moon Caye Natural Monument, Blue Hole Natural Monument, Glover’s Reef Marine Reserve, South Water Caye Marine Reserve and Sapodilla Cays Marine Reserve. As you can see this is a vast area encompassing many places it is good to see that all of these places are now under government and civilian protection. (www.eoearth.org)
In spite of the overwhelming amount of negative speculation, the practice of de-extinction might potentially produce some positive ramifications. According to Stewart Brand, a writer for National Geographic, humans should bring back extinct species “to preserve biodiversity, to restore diminished ecosystems...and to undo harm that humans have caused in the past.” If humans were to tamper with nature and bring back an extinct animal, desolate ecosystems which previously thrived, such as deserted islands, could be partially restored through their
Destroying the habitat of different plants and animals, they no longer have a place to live. Their food source and nutrients are taken away and have nowhere else to go. These organisms will die out and there will be a loss in the diversity of that ecosystem. That ecosystem can then start to crumble as the habitats are taken away and the plants and animals have no home. With no habitat in which the organisms can live in, there is going to be very little diversity.
In South America lies the largest and most wondrous rainforest in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. This 1.4 billion acre forest represents over half of the planets remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most bio-diverse tract of rainforest in the world. Ten percent of all known species on the planet are found in this rain forest, most of which have yet to be discovered. For the past century, the Amazon has been gradually decreasing in size due to agricultural expansion, ranching, infrastructure projects, energy exploration and illegal logging. At its current state, the Amazon is losing land equal to the size of the state of Delaware every year. The destruction of this forest releases 340 million tons of carbon per year according to the World Wildlife Foundation, or WWF, which in turn cause climate changes everywhere around the world. Undiscovered species can hold the key to curing a plethora of diseases, but if those species become extinct those keys are lost forever. If nothing is done to prevent this, the world’s treasure trove of bio-diversity will cease to exist, creating irreversible damage to not only the South American people but also the rest of the world.
In this new age of technology and advances in every possible field of study, many people forget about the environment. Some will just throw their trash all over the place with no concern for the possible consequences. Of course, there are many consequences, but only one comes to my mind. That is the demolition of species’ homes or habitat destruction. Habitat destruction or habitat loss is the altering or elimination of the conditions that plants and animals need to survive. “The primary threat to the world’s biodiversity is habitat destruction” (Okey p.1). Prairies have been greatly affected. The “loss of prairie habitat ranges from 20 to >99 percent depending on the region” (Benedict, Freeman, & Genoways, p.161). Habitat destruction can be caused by many things. These include:
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.
Rainforests once covered 14% of the worlds land surface, however now it only covers a mere 6%. It is estimated that all rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. Trees are becoming more needed and used everyday. We need them cut down for many reasons such as paper and timber, while also needing them ‘untouched’ for other reasons like oxygen, we have to ask ourselves, which is more important? At the current rate, most of the rainforests are being cut down for resources like paper and timber, but less importance is being placed on main resources like oxygen.
== = = Human beings are dependent on the Earth's diversity of species for our survival. Wild species play a vital role in the maintenance of the planets ecological functions, yet everyday on the planet 40-100 species become extinct.
Many of the issues of biodiversity loss can be traced back to human interaction to the environment. One of the issues is alteration and loss of habitats. A lot of this issue is based on the destruction of habitats and for the land to be used for human consumption. The land is either used up for agricultural use or for neighborhoods. Destroying habitats and building them for our own use can have a positive impact on our way of living but a negative impact on the environment. We would gain land for building land for crops and communities to be built. The habitat for the animals would be destroyed and the species local to the land would either relocate or die. There are restrictions to deforesting land and there are organizations to help protect the land.
One of the reasons for loss in biodiversity is alteration of habitats. A habitat is the natural environment in which a species of living organism lives. If the habitat of a species is changed, it will cause the species to die or migrate to other places where it can find its natural habitat. There are many ways in which the habitat of plants and animals can be altered. One of them is land use changes. Since the beginning of human life, human beings have been changing land use for farming. Large areas of forests have been cleared by humans to increase the area of farming to satisfy their growing needs. Many biodiversity-rich landscape characteristics have been lost due to intensive farming (Young, Richards, Fischer, Halada, Kull, Kuzniar, Tartes, Uzunov & Watt, 2007). For example, traditional farming was replaced by private farms in Europe after the First World War causing an immense change in land use patterns. Another major proble...