Should Humans Strive to Preserve a Representative Sample of All Biomes or Aquatic Zones?
Essay by nikky • January 28, 2012 • Essay • 452 Words (2 Pages) • 7,586 Views
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Should humans strive to preserve a representative sample of all biomes or aquatic zones?
Biome is a major ecological community type characterized by a similar climate, soil, plants, and animals
Aquatic Zone is an organism that lives in, on, or near the water.
Yes, human should preserve samples of biomes because this will help them to preserve the sample of the soil, plants and animals and how the climates were. We share the world with many other species of plants and animals; we must consider the consequences of our actions. Over the past several decades, increasing human activity has rapidly destroyed or polluted many ecological habitats throughout the world (Botkin, D., and E. Keller. 1995). I think it is important that people should have a responsibility to the Planet Earth to preserve all types of biomes and aquatic zones as possible as each unique forms of life. We wouldn't know the value of these biomes and aquatic zones until they are lost.
Why should humans be concerned with the extinction rate? The Earth's species are dying out at an alarming rate, up to 1,000 times faster than their natural rate of extinction. By carefully examining fossil records and ecosystem destruction, some scientists estimate that as many as 137 species disappear from the Earth each day, which adds up to an astounding 50,000 species disappearing every year. Tropical rainforests contain at least half of the Earth's species. The incredible diversity of the rainforests means that most species have evolved to inhabit very specialized niches in their environment; when humans disrupt that environment, many species cannot survive. Species depend on each other in a complicated web of relationships, changing just one part of that web harms the entire ecosystem as people destroy or significantly change the rainforests, certain species die out, and as they go extinct, other species die out, which in turn leads to further breakdown of the ecosystem. This breakdown of rainforest ecosystems will likely lead to the disappearance of up to 10% of the world's species within the next 25 years unless we act to stop it ( Odum, E.P. 1993). Many indigenous people survive directly off of the resources found in the rainforest they use the plants for food and medicine, and may identify certain species as a sacred and essential part of their heritage. When these resources are destroyed, the people lose their homes, their food, and their very culture. Once something is extinct, it's gone forever. I think humans have a duty to the earth to preserve as much as possible and be concerned about the extinction rate. We do not know how valuable these plants and animals are to "us" (meaning people) and the planet in the future.
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