Global Assessment of Biodiversity and the Anthropogenic Impacts on Them

Horn of Africa might be the most conspicuous segment on the Africa map, but only a little is known about the region. Most people, in fact, know this place it as the region that’s always in a consistent warfare, or that region that’s overridden by drought and all sorts of adversities. To clear such miscalculated assumptions, at the list we have compiles a low down of at list 10 things about this place, but I want to simply list the three most important points to know about the region ("Horn of Africa: 10 Facts You Should Know", 2017).

Variation amongst the same species between diverse groups and between versions of the same gene in different individuals in a population is genetic diversity.

The aims of using VORTEX (Lacey and Pollak, 2014) was to analyse the success of management strategies including controlled hunting, supplementation, habitat restoration and corridors or a combination. VORTEX takes into account random events such as catastrophes running through iterations (replicas) to generate outcomes (Lacy, 1993). Each outcome will be assessed using probabilities of survival, genetic diversity and mean population sizes over a 200 year period.

The scale and pace of change is dramatic; for example, the extinction of species is occurring at around 100-fold pre-human rates4. The population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, declined by half over the last 45 years5. More than 2.3 million km2 of primary forest has been felled since 20006. About

What is the difference between a threatened species, an endangered species, and an extinct species?

This is bad because for cloning to occur because cloning is essential copying the DNA strands so the telomeres can be deleted. When amino acids are deleted that changes the sequence and that leads to many disorders. Biodiversity is very important because it provides better health to all species. In the novel, Brave New World, a character named Bernard was made just like everyone else but he still didn’t turn out like everyone else. “He stood eight inches centimeters short of a standard Alpha height and was slender in proportion” (Huxley, 64), this shows that just because something is done to follow procedure, it doesn’t prove that the genetically engineered organism is bound to be fit for its environment.

The world is declining in biodiversity, 52% of it is gone. About 1% of the world species go extinct a year. That’s 1’000 to 10’000 species loss. Accompanying it, 19’300 species are endangered. Latin America loss 83% of its wildlife. Over half of Malaysia’s river fish species disappear during deforestation. Half of Australian state governments exploit the uses of national parks. The Alpine suffer dramatic biodiversity loss. The earth is clearly losing biodiversity. This is huge unnoticed threat that we need to address. Mankind depends on the ecosystem which depends on biodiversity. There are changes that need to be made and uphold to prevent difficulties from further escalating. This problem isn’t going to fix itself.

Bill Freedmen, author of “Endangered Species—Human Causes Of Extinction and Endangerment” notes, “scientists approximate that present extinction rates are 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than the average natural extinction rate.” These distressing numbers should be acted upon to save the endangered species and avoid the catastrophic change to this planet if these species were to become extinct. In order to produce change, people need to recognize that habitat loss, climate change, and poaching are all factors in why our animal species are going extinct.

Humans have existed since 200,000 years but the Earth has existed around 4.5 billion years. Nature has provided us with everything we have today - food, medicines, materials, chemicals, metals, minerals etc. It can only keep providing us when we maintain the right environment for it to exist. This environment depends on the biodiversity of Earth. The number of species of plants, animals and microorganisms and the various genes in these species, different ecosystems such as deserts, rainforests and coral reefs are all part of a biologically diverse Earth. Hence Biodiversity impacts everything. We will discuss how Biodiversity plays a crucial role on social, environmental, and economic factors. We will also discuss what

Biodiversity loss is caused by local, global, and regional factors, so this problem should be brought to all of their attention. Responses designed to address biodiversity loss will not be sufficient unless relevant direct and indirect drivers of change are brought to attention. Some causes of biodiversity loss are localized, such as overexploitation. Others are global, such as climate change, while a lot operate at a different variety of scales, such as the local impacts of invasive species through global trade. Most of the responses named here were designed to address the direct causes of biodiversity loss. However, these causes are better seen as symptoms of the indirect causes, such as unsustainable patterns of consumption, demographic change, and globalization.

Can you imagine a world without birds chirping in the early morning or the crickets singing in the silent night or even the plants blooming in the spring? Now, more than ever, a lot of species are being exposed to endangerment. Right about now, scientists emphasize “forty-one thousand, four hundred and fifteen species are on the IUCN Red list (ARkive.org). The Red list is the world’s inventory of the global status of biological species sixteen thousand, three hundred and six of species are threatened with extinction(iucnredlist.org). A species goes extinct if it is not able to adapt to changes in its environment, or compete well with other organisms. Over the history of the earth over 99% of all the species that have ever lived have gone extinct (paleo.gly). There are many factors that are involved in the endangerment and extinction of species. This includes natural disasters, pollution, overhunting, fur trapping, and many more. One of these factors is part of the natural process, but man made causes have sped up this process.

Activities by some organization can be detrimental to biodiversity. For example, a mining operation that are situated in areas with crucial species’ habitats contributes to diversity loss. The studies by Fisher et al. (2011) have documented the impact of logging and timber operations on biodiversity. The government should impose increased taxes and levies on companies that pollute the environment.

A diverse array of species is necessary to maintain ecosystem functions and the ecosystem services upon which humans depend. For example, when water flows through a wetland ecosystem, the water is purified of chemical wastes. Wetlands also help in moderating the flow of water, which thereby minimizes flooding. Wetlands are increasingly being destroyed or degraded, in the United States 50% of wetlands have been damaged, which results in the loss of these services. The destruction of the wetlands that lay along the Gulf Coast is believed to have greatly contributed to the devastating floods associated with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017 (Christensen). Biodiversity helps ecosystems respond quickly to disturbances and environmental changes, with the loss of wetlands comes the loss of regulatory and support services, which results in more property damage and deaths from already devastating natural disasters.

Simultaneously, thousands of other species across the globe face the same threat: extinction. Biodiversity is an essential part of our world, our global ecosystem. As Planet Earth?s resources diminish and its creatures vanish, those who recognize the need to preserve what is disappearing look to international politics to accomplish what individuals cannot. The most important instrument for implementation of international policy has been the Convention On International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which went into effect in 1975.

The health of the earth degrades with the destructive activity of human beings. A recent study by a group of scientists looked at twenty four different services that the earth’s ecosystems provide for humans, ecosystem services, and found that fifteen of them are in need of desperate help (Gazette 31 March 2005). These services are vital to the survival of both human and nonhuman life and include filtering water and providing nutrient rich soils and ocean waters. Many of the members of these various ecosystems are also decreasing in numbers. In a British survey of bird populations found that in the 200 birds of Britain tracked there was about a 54% population decrease between the 1968-1971 tacking period and the 1988-1991 tacking period. In two other surveys of 254 native plant species from the same area there was a decrease of about 28% during the past 40 years. Humans are pushing the sixth mass extinction (Gazette March 19, 2004).