Is there something tragic about the fact that species are going extinct almost more quickly than we can look them "in the face"?
Reading about the diversity of life on our planet or hearing about it in documentaries, i am not very hopeful for the future of biodiversity on our planet. Human beings have always found a way to survive. We are the top of the food chain and there isn’t much that we can’t adapt to. Most other species do not have this luxury, and the fragile balance that keeps them alive is constantly being challenged by human interference. We are not trying to purposefully eradicate these organisms but our existence has been nothing but harmful to the biodiversity of our planet.
When i was a kid i would hear stories about the amazon and its seemingly endless supply of new species and think, how could something so huge and important ever be affected by humans? Of course I was naive back then and didn’t fully comprehend the destructive nature of our species. Looking at satellite images of the amazon rain-forest over the years, anyone with eyes should be heartbroken to see so much of what used to be rain-forest is now flat land. We have probably lost so many species that we’ve never seen, species that could have provided cures to diseases. When we let a species die, we lose all that evolutionary development forever. How much history have we ended by exterminating the species on our planet, how many cures have we missed, and how many will future generations miss. Biodiversity is beneficial to all living things on Earth, and it is a shame that our need for it has not been prioritized over the need for wood and farmland. Based on current projections the increase in demand for wood will cause the amazon as we know it to be gone within fifty years.
I have always wanted to visit the Amazon but I fear that I may never get the chance to see it in all its beauty by the time humans have had their way with it. It’d be nice if the entire forest could be protected but i doubt the Brazilian government would support that. However if countries like the US actually cared about climate change and used its influence on other countries to protect the planet, maybe we’d have a chance at saving it. I would hate to live in a world without jungles and coral reefs but if we don’t act now then we can say goodbye to two of the world's most beautiful and bio-diverse biomes within our lifetimes.
Photo by The New York Times
I think one thing that is also disheartening about losing species is the fact that people are so disillusioned to it. Every year in elementary we were, or at least I was, taught about endangered and threatened species. And yet, we continue the practices that further this destruction. We are in the United States, most of the population living in urban areas. We forget the value of biodiversity because we do not consider nature in our day to day events, and thus the destruction of our planet and those that inhabit it won't stop.
ReplyDeleteE.O. Wilson: “Humanity is a biological species, living in a biological environment, because like all species, we are exquisitely adapted in everything: from our behavior, to our genetics, to our physiology, to that particular environment in which we live. The earth is our home. Unless we preserve the rest of life, as a sacred duty, we will be endangering ourselves by destroying the home in which we evolved, and on which we completely depend.”
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