Habitats in Danger

The Earth is a home to millions of different kinds of living things, which are linked in many ways. Together, they make up the complex world of nature. Some are rivals or enemies while others depend on each other for survival.

Wild plants and animals live in a particular set of surroundings, called their habitat. Nowadays people are in a hurry to change habitats to suit their own needs – to create farmlands or build cities, for example. The way people live threatens the delicate balance between living things and their habitats.

People create pollution, which travels through the air and water from one habitat to another. They also destroy wildlife habitats by digging the ground up for mining, or by building roads through them.

A quarter of all the plants in the world are known to be in danger or threatened with extinction.

The most serious threat to plants is the destruction of their habitat. This includes cutting down rainforests, draining wetlands, and plowing up grasslands. As population increases, people demand more space. The trees are cut down for timber or make way for farms and mines, but forest clearance causes many long-term problems such as soil erosion, floods, and droughts. An area of a football field is cut down every second. If this continues, the rest of the rainforests could disappear within 40 years.

Marshes, peat bogs, and other wetlands are important habitats. Coastal wetlands are spawning grounds for fish, lobsters, and shrimps. More than half of European wetlands has been drained for agriculture, flood control or tourism. Pollution from farms and towns also damages wetlands. Conservation laws, pollution control, and less intensive farming would help them recover.