Ecological Crisis - Biodiversity Extinction

Biodiversity Extinction

Vast numbers of species are being annihilated. Every year between 17,000 and 100,000 species vanish from the planet. The speed in which species are becoming extinct is much faster than in the past. The last mass extinction was caused by a meteor collision 65 million years ago.

The loss of new species in an ecosystem will eventually affect all living creatures. In the U.S. and Canada, there was a dramatic reduction of shark population along the U.S. east coast. Since then, there has been an increase in population of rays and skates, which in turn has decimated the population of shellfish. The loss of shellfish has reduced the water quality and the size of sea grass beds. Biodiversity is being lost at a fast rate. The more species there are in an ecosystem, the more resilient it is to evolution.

Seven million square kilometers of tropical forest have vanished in the last 50 years. About two million square kilometers were used for crops, while the remaining five million square kilometers is poor quality land. Turning these unproductive lands back into native forest could capture an estimated five billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere every year for 10 to 20 or more years. Reforestation will have enormous benefits on biodiversity.