Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems; also, the ecological complexes of which they are part of. This can include diversity within species and their ecosystems. No feature of Earth is more complex, dynamic, and varied in the layer that the organisms that live on this ground or water, taking in the same air as humans (“Biodiversity”).
Specifically, species diversity is the most complex. Every organism, plant, or any living thing known to man has its own characteristic. Every characteristic is then split into their own categories or families. Then there is ecosystem diversity which is a given place that each type of animal can live. An ecosystem is based on the type of living of the animal. It can range from a coral reef, a wet, dripping rainforest, to a dry desert (“Biodiversity & Human Well-Being”). So, about where is biodiversity? Finding biodiversity is as simple as walking outside and looking around.
Trees, ground, and even bodies of water. It’s around us every second of every day if we just sit still, watch or even listen. Do people know the effect of destroying biodiversity, or do they not even know what biodiversity is? The world is growing, but do people know the consequences of that, and what it is simply doing to the world around us? Is destroying the biodiversity’s around the world worth the consequences we would face, or do people just care for the human race? The world is evolving, the populations are increasing, but what is the area of living for humans doing?
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It is destroying the homes of our animals that we depend so much on. The kinds of destruction that are occurring from humans are habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, and habitat degradation (“Stein”). The main causes of habitat loss include agriculture, land conversion, water development, pollution, and climate change. The land habitats are not the only ecosytems getting destroyed the marine habitats are decreasing slowly day by day as well. Marine life includes swamps, wetlands, and even marshes. The destruction is occurring from typhoons, large storms and tsunamis, and many mother nature destructions. The human destructions come anywhere from pollution, chemical leaks, erosion, large boats, as well as oil spills (“Marine”).
The five major threats of biodiversity include climate change, deforestation and habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, and pollution (“Petronzio”). Climate change is very hurtful for the biodiversity’s, global warming is climate change, and 93 percent of global warming is going to the oceans. Melting ice and warming the water up for species that live in that cold air and water (“Shah”). The human life depends on the biodiversity in general and not even the animals around us every day very deeply. Something that humans depend so greatly for is fuels and other living essentials.
The human life depends on the products such as the freshwater it provides, food that grows on plants, trees, and bushes, it also depends on the services such as the fuel sources. Some fuel sources that could involve is biomass, bioenergy crops, and some fuels that involve manure and algae (“Butt”).The most source of fuel that is extracted from the ground is fossil fuels, and fossil fuels have the most impact on biodiversity. The extraction of fossil fuels causes disturbance and degradation to ecosystems around the impact in the ground. The main areas of destruction that is hurting the ecosystems the most is northern South America and the Western Amazon (“Butt”).
These areas contain large amounts of oil and gases, but also very popular for the rainforest biodiversity area. A biodiversity loss can impact humans quicker than we can even imagine. It just doesn’t impact the human physical well-being, it causes other issues along the lines of mental health well-being. It causes issues in the income, local migration, and they can get to even something as in a political conflict. Destroying the habitats and biodiversity of plants and trees around us can possibly be destroying something that could cure a medical disease or other health problem in the near future.
Nutrition is a large part of a human health, and we get this nutrition from crops, marine species, livestock. None of these things would be capable without biodiversity, soil. Soil allows these things to grow. Soil can be used for tasks everywhere if it is for growing food for livestock, or for growing crops and plants for harvesting and being consumable (“Biodiversity”). If our fields for crops and plants get run over by cities, buildings, or houses for the expanding and increasing population the human race would not be able to supply food.
The human race depends on biodiversity severely and people might not recognize that. The medicine for human health is found mostly in plants. The medical plant is the most common tool used for medicine worldwide. Some countries are not given the great technology as other countries, so they must understand the helpful usages for a plant. The destruction of plants will not allow the improvement of medicine in some countries. The medicine in countries throughout the world are increasing day by day, and research for other medicines are being done and tested.
Up to 50% approved drugs in the last 30 years came from natural products in the area of cancer. Usages of plants for medicine are underestimated; in fact, 35,000-70,000 plant species have been screened for their medical capability. The first ever pure natural product introduced was morphine in 1826 (“Natural”). That’s just for example that back in the 1800s the advanced technology was not invented and something like morphine came from plants to help relieve pain. Almost three-quarters of the large carnivores are declining and dying away. Animals including lions, leopards, wolves, and even bears, are simply dying due to human impact on them. Humans believe that they can take the roles of these animals and that’s not correct (“Loss of Biodiversity and Extinctions”).
These animals are in this ecosystem and they are part of the role of the animal life cycle. If we don’t have predators or prey the whole ecosystem and life chain of an animal can fade away and slowly be extinct. The belief that humans can take roles of the predators in the wild is a while that humans are impacting our ecosystems. The animals’ life chain is one of the most important things when it comes to animal and the way they live. They all have their own tasks and roles and taking one animal out of its role can cause the whole life chain to not act correctly.
‘While there are disagreements and differences on how this works, it suggests that ecological balance and biodiversity are crucial for all of the earth, not just humans.” People believe there are pros against everything. People also believe that pros outweigh the cons every day and any day. That is also just a point of view. Deforestation is a big impact on the world that some humans online see the positive of them. Some pros that people only view is the main important about deforestation include it creating more usable space for growth. It is creating more road systems, they believe that the space for humans is ten times more important than the habitats for the animals that have been living here much longer than the humans.
The area for a human living is very important when it comes to the future. The populations are increasing year by year and that means the area of leaving needs to also increase, no matter what the destruction is doing to the biodiversity’s around (“Causes”). Another example is more usable material, meaning wood from cutting down trees and other products that can come from wood. Is it allowing civilization and industrialization? Not using parts of the forest are pros for people wanting to cut down these trees, because they believe that it will be used for better purposes.
Another proof deforesting is it is creating more jobs for citizens wanting to be employed and to make money (“Lombardo”). Some people don’t have jobs or rely on a job to take care of their loved ones. Having a job, that can do many things for themselves or their family like paying the bills and putting food on the table for your family is a job that someone needs and wants. Scientists could be along with this proof deforestation because it could possibly give them the opportunity to find new animals or plants that could be something brand new and no one knew about.
The discovery of something such as a new plant or animal can be very useful. Discovering some type of new plant can be used for the next big medical capability, but none of that would be possible if deforestation wasn’t taking place in the world today. The destroying of forests and biodiversity is also positive due to that it can create more croplands for the food and crops. The farmers rely on those fields to grow their produce and then sell the product to make the money needed to make a lifestyle (“Natural”). Hotspots are home of the most endemic species when they are combined, they can contain over half of the worlds terrestrial species. Possibly wanting to destroy rainforest such as these, is another wanting way to find exotic animals that have yet to be found by any scientist or animal related research (“Brooks”).
Hotspots consist of about half the plant species in the world, and about 1,500 endemic species of plants. Plants are not the only thing in hotspots; there can be anywhere from reptiles, amphibians, and once again plants (“Brooks”) That’s why it’s a positive people are in hotspots taking over the hotspots, to be able to do more research on the plants and animals that have habitats there. There are also reasons for the destruction of rainforest that help the world in some humans’ eyes. These examples include agriculture issues, logging, tourism, and even mining and industry.
Logging is taking the timber from the trees and using them for many usages. It is usually exported to rich countries so they are making money off of wood transport. The usages for architect purposes can also have in impact (“Gaille”). Wooden houses are very popular in some areas of the world. The world is using wood for many other reasons, one example that is very big is fire heated houses. Some houses are stove burning houses that require wood to heat the house. The wood usages can be found for the reason why deforesting is positive in some eyes.
Just because there is always bad news coming from the destruction of ecosystems and destruction of animal homes, does not mean it’s all one hundred percent bad. Even though animals have a hard time moving and finding a new ecosystem they can most definitely do it. It is proven that animals and even plants can adapt to a new stress, food sources, and even adapt to the new type of prey or predators. Just because an animal moves ecosystems they can still run into the same type of predator or threats. Without threats an animal life cycle would be too long and easy, the way animals live can help humans (“Greentumbled”).
There is no denying that in fact there is biodiversity getting destroyed day by day, but there is also no deny on if it is for a good reason or a bad reason. There are facts and reasoning for reasons why it’s bad or good. Is it expanding out rural areas, yes, but is it decreasing living for useful animals we have in our lives, yes. The world will sooner or later realize that animals share the same world as us, and they do so much for us. The world will also sooner or later run out of room for the amounts of a population increasing decade by decade.
There’s nothing we can do but to continue the area for living suburban, but us humans simply cannot live without animals and plants to rely on. I believe that the destruction of biodiversity’s needs to be stopped, yes, the population needs more area, but destroying the animals’ habitats is not an answer. There are many ways to stop the destruction some of the easiest ones to do include; simply restore habitat in your community, reduce your energy demand, buy local foods, reduce your consumption, and finally reuse and recycle. Would it be hard to go back to the 1800s where biodiversity took up more than 50% of the world, yes! Simply helping the world out day by day, will not allow the biodiversity problem to get worse than they are, and animals will always be a part of our lives.
References
- Biodiversity Library
- Convention on Biological Diversity
- IUCN: Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions
- European Commission: Biodiversity
- National Geographic: Biodiversity in Rising Seas
- WWF: Causes of Loss of Biodiversity
- Journal of Animal Ecology: Global Patterns in Human Consumption of Net Primary Production and of Webs built upon It.
