Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The loss of biodiversity may not directly affect humans, but the indirect effects of losing many species as well as the diversity of ecosystems in general are enormous. When biodiversity is lost, the environment loses many species that perform valuable and unique roles in the ecosystem.
The resilience of human food systems and their capacity to adapt to future change is linked to biodiversity – including dryland-adapted shrub and tree species that help combat desertification, forest-dwelling insects, bats and bird species that pollinate crops, trees with extensive root systems in mountain ecosystems that prevent soil erosion ...
Displacement of people: This can occur when people are forced to leave their land due to land conversion. Loss of cultural heritage: This can occur when land conversion destroys archaeological sites and other cultural landmarks. Land conversion is a complex issue with a wide range of environmental, economic, and social impacts.
Afforestation can also improve the local climate through increased rainfall and by being a barrier against high winds. The additional trees can also prevent or reduce topsoil erosion (from water and wind), floods and landslides. Finally, additional trees can be a habitat for wildlife, and provide employment and wood products. [2]
Plants provide the greater part of the food for people and their domestic animals: much of civilisation came into being through agriculture. While many plants have been used for food, a small number of staple crops including wheat, rice, and maize provide most of the food in the world today.
Although about 80 percent of humans' food supply comes from just 20 kinds of plants, [159] humans use at least 40,000 species. [160] Earth's surviving biodiversity provides resources for increasing the range of food and other products suitable for human use, although the present extinction rate shrinks that potential.
Gains in forest land have resulted from conversions from crop land and pastures at a higher rate than loss of forest to development. However issues have been identified such as the continued loss of old-growth forest, [9] the increased fragmentation of forest lands, and the increased urbanization of forest land. [10]
Ecosystem services are the various benefits that humans derive from healthy ecosystems. These ecosystems, when functioning well, offer such things as provision of food, natural pollination of crops, clean air and water, decomposition of wastes, or flood control. Ecosystem services are grouped into four broad categories of services.