Why does it matter?

Why should we care that other living things are in danger of being lost to our planet?

How about beauty, biodiversity, medicinal plants, and the pollinators that are critical

to all kinds of food we eat. Plus, bats, frogs and snakes keep down mosquito and rodent

populations. Man-eating tigers protect some of the last mangrove forests along coastal

areas of India, which sequester carbon, stem erosion and combat rising sea levels.

Protecting and restoring eight species - from whales to sea otters - could sequester over

6 billion tons of carbon annually. Fish are an important source of protein for half the world’s

people. Wolves bring tourists to Denali. As keystone predators, sharks keep a lid on skate and ray populations, not allowing them to over-eat shrimp and scallops (which some of the rest of us like). Scavengers give waste a second life. Ants, earthworms and bacteria enrich the soil, from which springs the plants that are the foundation of the food chain. Insects pollinate our food and the flowers we enjoy - and are food for birds. Birds, one in eight species of which are in danger of extinction, may truly be canaries in the mine - harbingers of environmental threats to our own health.

And, of course, COVID-19 emerged from

human invasion of deep forests.

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NCP's David Radcliff leads a global photo

tour to look at the reasons why the

numbers of other living things are declining

by 10 percent per decade      -->

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Habitat Loss

The disappearance of so many living things

is no magic act – it is directly related to

human actions, with habitat loss leading the way: forests destroyed (along with use of child workers and threats against anyone opposing them) by the palm oil industry; swamps giving way to sugarcane in the Everglades; ice caps melting as the planet warms; farms, shopping malls and subdivisions drastically affecting things like insect populations. Speaking of bugs, our lawns are death zones for other living things. With 40 million acres - 2 percent of US land - in yards, it's our largest "crop". How can we cut down on the amount of grass we cut, giving it back to nature? Farther afield, the planet is losing 50 million acres of forests per year due to (by rank) agribusiness, lumbering, fires, local agriculture. Countries like the USA have no net loss of forests, but this is typically due to reforesting tree plantations - which are biodiversity deserts.

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Over-harvesting

....also takes a toll. Two-thirds of global fish stocks are now considered at risk. When roads are made

into forested areas in Africa, animal populations plummet as local hunters clean out forests to supply urbanites’ longing for “bush meat". A different kind of harvest is that done by house cats on the prowl.

A recent Smithsonian report claimed that 1-3 billion birds and up to 15 billion small mammals are killed

by let-loose and feral cats every year in the USA. There's also the issue of Under-harvesting: that is, too many deer or other species whose natural predators, from cougars to native people, are no longer present to control their populations, at great cost to the environment. Here's what happened when wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone, putting pressure on elk herds and restoring local ecosystems, benefitting even beavers!

 

Poachers

Yet another kind of over-harvesting is carried out by the world’s poachers and the illegal wildlife trade. This $15 billion global poaching industry further depletes already-threatened species. Related to this

is the bush meat trade, as hunters follow logging and mining roads to kill wildlife for local or urban or even foreign markets in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. 

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Invasive Species

Humans and their goods travel - and they take their rats, nonnative grasses, snakes, lantern flies and other plants, animals and insects with them. Indeed, 60 percent of all extinctions are connected to invasive species. Here are some of invasives that are the biggest threats in the USA.

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Pollution

Pollution is another issue, as runoff from mines, farms, industries, roads, and lawns kills stream life and creates Dead Zones in the world’s oceans and bays - 400 at last count. The oceans also average 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile - a deadly hazard to marine life - some scientists say causing more death to living things than climate change. Pesticides and other pollutants increasingly threaten aquatic species, with 90 percent of US urban streams affected; pesticides also are a contributing factor to dramatic declines in bird populations in the USA. And then there's noise pollution, affecting everything from bird song to whale communication (and stress levels!).

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Climate Change

And climate change: one-quarter of the world’s reptiles and amphibians are at risk of extinction by 2100 if present warming trends continue. The clock is ticking for moose, native fish are losing ground, darker colored insects are having to get outta town. All told: "As climate change continues...a potentially catastrophic loss of global biodiversity is on the horizon." (excerpt from this study)