The Greatest Threat

In the beginning, only animals roamed the Earth. It was a green place, where days passed quietly and there was a balance of creatures that lived on this planet. But evolution happened, and humans came out on top. Soon, they were taking over everything; destroying natural habitats, creating pollution, and generally degrading the longevity of the Earth for relatively short term gains.

Today, the greatest threat to wildlife is habitat loss. This makes sense, because when you take away someone’s source of food and shelter, the chance of survival plummets. In addition to this, some organisms are versatile and can adapt to their environment changing around them – humans obviously being in this category – while others’ survivability depends on very specific conditions. Habitat destruction and degradation has many causes – such as farming, housing, businesses, etc – as well as implications.

Land Conversion

The majority of habitat loss is caused by land conversion, which comes from the demand for land for agriculture. To date, about 50% of the world’s habitable land is used for farming, but the demand is growing once more.  With advancements in technology and medicine, the average life expectancy is increasing. This means that people are living longer, which in turn means that the human population on Earth is rising. People, like any other living being, need food. The increasing demand for food creates a greater need for land to farm said food.

But once the land is cleared for horticulture use, sometimes unsustainable agricultural processes lead to the desertification – the process by which fertile land becomes desert – of the land. Basically, millions of acres of land each year go to waste. The habitat is gone, the ecosystem destroyed, and nothing is left.

Desertification.
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Monocultures

A monoculture is the cultivation of a single crop in a given area. The best example of this problem is the palm oil monoculture. Palm oil is a product in great demand. It is used in developing countries for cooking, but is present in a plethora of prepared food products and cosmetics as well. Although it may not be a huge part of our diet here in the United States, we consume a lot of palm oil, probably without even realizing it.

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The oil palm tree is also a very productive crop, which means that it’s cheaper to harvest than other vegetable oils and has a greater yield. This makes it profitable, and because it can only grow in tropical areas, a lot of tropical forests have been cleared so the land can be used for growing oil palms. Like any profitable business, there are people who start doing things illegally. Illegal palm oil plantings are very common, and play a considerable role in the cutting down of tropical forests.

In the areas where oil palms are grown – primarily on a few islands in Malaysia and Indonesia –  there is a direct relationship between the growth of oil palm estates and deforestation. This is a problem because tropical forests are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, and mass conversion is disastrous for a countless number of plant and animal species.

Human-Wildlife Conflict

When habitat is destroyed, the animals that once lived on that land have to move elsewhere. They can’t all live in the diminished land area, so oftentimes wild animals find themselves in the backyard of someone’s home. This obviously creates problems for both parties. Humans lose livestock, crops, and sometimes even their lives, while the animal that was forced out of its natural habitat (and is usually threatened or endangered) is killed to prevent future conflicts.

Climate

A common method of clearing trees is to burn them, which releases a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. An increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, coupled with a decrease in the amount of trees that can absorb the carbon dioxide, leads to climate change.

Burning the trees to clear land.
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Forests also play a significant role in regulating weather. In October 2014, an article was published in the Guardian that described the impact that deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest had on Brazil’s weather: “The Amazon works as a giant pump, channeling moisture inland via aerial rivers and rainclouds that form over the forest more dramatically than over the sea…It also provides a buffer against extreme weather events, such as tornadoes and hurricanes.” This is important because at the time of the publication, Brazil was going through a severe drought. Deforestation of the Amazon has led to an increase in the country’s dry period, which means that it has a direct effect on humans, not just wildlife.

Next steps

Climate change, illegal activities, loss of biodiversity… those are only a few of the issues that arise when it comes to habitat destruction. But like with many environmental and conservational issues, the first step is to educate the public and get them to believe that there is an urgent problem that needs fixing. Only then will any action truly occur. However once that is done, ecosystems must be preserved and restored. What is the best way that this can be accomplished? Is it possible to see a greener future on the horizon?

Reality.
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