Loss of Biodiversity and its Peculiarities - Assignment Example

Loss of Biodiversity 1RUNNING HEAD: LOSS OF BIODIVERSITY Loss of BiodiversityIntroduction Biodiversity is an exceedingly important component of life on Earth. It is not solely focused on the variety of living organisms, but also the structures with interdependence to these living entities, including humans; thus, creating and maintaining ecological systems. Biodiversity also encompasses the biological life diversity on earth, from the highest level ecosystems through species to genes.

In the absence of life forms (Simon, Reece and Dickey, 2009), these landscapes would be just about indistinguishable from one another. In the last few decades, there have been clear evidence pointing on the current loss of global biodiversity and is existing at a rate that is very least expected. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF-2007), urbanization is presently rapid worldwide and in the projection of Beardsley et al., (2009) this is going to progress in the coming years especially in the developing countries where 80% of the global urban communities future directions will be found by 2030 .

The Living Planet Index supported this facts as shown in their report that wild species and several natural ecosystems are pressed to a certain degree across the world's regioss and biomes. The report elaborated, anthropogenic and direct threats to biodiversity are commonly grouped accordingly: Habitat loss, overexploitation of species, fragmentation or change, particularly due to agriculture, fishing, pollution, climate change and the spread of exotic/invasive species. These threats are contributed by human demands on the biosphere – the mass food production and consumption, improper waste disposal, displacement of natural ecosystems , etc.

(World Wide Fund of Nature, 2003).Ecological Nature of the Problem The increasing urbanization and human population growth during recent decades have resulted significant loss of habitats in the urban landscape (Mckinney, 2002); accompanied by many environmental problems, such as a reduction of green spaces and ecosystem deterioration (Lee et al., 2005). Upon examining ecosystems such as the marine, data is alarming how loss of biodiversity affects marine ecosystem services at various temporal and spatial scales.

Ecosystems decreased exponentially with diversity decline; biodiversity loss is increasingly destroyed (Worm, Barbier, Beaumont, Duffy, Folke, Halpern, Jackson, Lotze, Micheli, Palumbi, Sala, Selkoe, Stachowicz, and Watson, 2006) . Possible solutions Biodiversity is actually part of the solution to imbalances in nature; it is vital for everyone's survival, it is essential for the well-being of all humans, as recognized in the Millennium Development Goal 7 (Agarwal, 2009: p 2785-2799). The changes in priorities and adaptive management is needed to sustain biodiversity under a changing climate.

Active management should take the form of enhancing further protection from all human interference, as conservation may require to include species and ecosystem interventions. In all cases, all stakeholders must considered biodiversity in the face of climate change, as well as, in theLoss of Biodiversity 3context of ecosystem competing uses. This requires an long process in order to anticipate h ecosystems will interact to a changing climate as it tries to counteract other environmental modifiers to alter dynamic interactions.

Management actions should be within a framework which is robust but flexible and adaptive. The actions to be taken my leaders and managers must function within the carrying capacity of the environment imposed by renewal rates and resource availability. As such, environmental thresholds should be established to ensure that society remains within them and consequently achieve sustainability (United Nations for Environmental Protection, 2010)Conclusion Biodiversity is not only part of the ecological structure, but also part of human belief system - cultural and spiritual values.

Individual persons unquestionably depended on the Earth’s biodiversity for their food, biological resources, shelter and health resources. However, during recent times, loss or decline of earth's resources have been strongly felt and extinction rates are now ten to a hundred times higher; and primary contributors for the said loss are: The introduction of exotic species, losst of species habitat, over-harvesting by (illegal) hunting, and overuse or overcutting of wood necessary for charcoal production and heating purposes.

It is, therefore, necessary to develop more mechanisms not only to avoid further degradation of the biodiversity, but also to overcome the current trend of biological species loss, as well as, cultural assets.REFERENCESBeardsley K, Thorne, J.H., Roth, N.E., Gao, S, and McCoy, M.C. (2009) Assessing the influence of rapid urban growth and regional policies on biological resources. Landscape and Urban Planning, 93: 172-183. Simon, E.J., Reece, J.B., and Dickey, J.L. (2009) Campbell essential biology, (4th ed.) Benjamin- Cummings Publishing Company, USA.

United Nations for Environmental Protection (2010) Integrated solutions for biodiversity, climate change and poverty. Retrieved on April 2, 2011 from http://www.unep.org/policyseries/Sustainable_intergrated_Solutions.pdf Worm, B. Barbier, E.B., Beaumont, N., Duffy, J.E., Folke, C., Halpern, B.S, Jackson, J.B., Lotze, H.K., Micheli, F., Palumbi, S.R., Sala, E., Selkoe, K.A., Stachowicz, J.J., Watson, R. (2006) Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science, 3;314 (5800): 787-90.

World Wide Fund For Nature (2010) Publication manual, Gland, Switzerland.