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Human activities have led to an ongoing biodiversity loss and an accompanying loss of genetic diversity. This process is often referred to as Holocene extinction, or sixth mass extinction. For example, it was estimated in 2007 that up to 30% of all species will be extinct by 2050. [4]
The four main pillars of a biocentric outlook are: Humans and all other species are members of Earth's community. All species are part of a system of interdependence. All living organisms pursue their own "good" in their own ways. Human beings are not inherently superior to other living things. [8]
The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components: Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
In this sense, the biosphere is but one of four separate components of the geochemical model, the other three being geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. When these four component spheres are combined into one system, it is known as the ecosphere. This term was coined during the 1960s and encompasses both biological and physical components of ...
[13] [15] [16] Biodiversity plays an important role in ecosystem services which by definition maintain and improve human quality of life. [ 14 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] Conservation priorities and management techniques require different approaches and considerations to address the full ecological scope of biodiversity.
Insects make up the vast majority of animal species. [14]Chapman, 2005 and 2009 [9] has attempted to compile perhaps the most comprehensive recent statistics on numbers of extant species, drawing on a range of published and unpublished sources, and has come up with a figure of approximately 1.9 million estimated described taxa, as against possibly a total of between 11 and 12 million ...
Summary of major biodiversity-related environmental-change categories expressed as a percentage of human-driven change (in red) relative to baseline (blue) It has been estimated that from 1970 to 2016, 68% of the world's wildlife has been destroyed due to human activity. [131] [132] In South America, there is believed to be a 70 percent loss. [133]
The report identified four major categories of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. [46] It concludes that human activity is having a significant and escalating impact on the biodiversity of the world ecosystems, reducing both their resilience and biocapacity. The report refers to natural systems as ...