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A 2021 report in Frontiers in Conservation Science proposed that population size and growth are significant factors in biodiversity loss, soil degradation and pollution. [38] [39] Some scientists and environmentalists, including Pentti Linkola, [40] Jared Diamond and E. O. Wilson, posit that human population growth is devastating to biodiversity.
Loss of biodiversity also means that humans are losing animals that could have served as biological-control agents and plants that could potentially provide higher-yielding crop varieties, pharmaceutical drugs to cure existing or future diseases (such as cancer), and new resistant crop-varieties for agricultural species susceptible to pesticide ...
Other scientists have criticized the assertion that population growth is a key driver for biodiversity loss. [13] They argue that the main driver is the loss of habitat, caused by "the growth of commodities for export, particularly soybean and oil-palm, primarily for livestock feed or biofuel consumption in higher income economies."
This illegal trading is worth an estimate of 7-23 billion [30] and an annual trade of around 100 million plants and animals. [31] In 2021 it was found that this trade has caused a 60% decline in species abundance, and 80% for endangered species. [31] This trade can be devastating to both humans and animals.
Significant numbers of dairy, as well as beef cattle, are confined in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), defined as "new and existing operations which stable or confine and feed or maintain for a total of 45 days or more in any 12-month period more than the number of animals specified" [251] where "[c]rops, vegetation, forage ...
A significant proportion of drugs are natural products derived, directly or indirectly, from biological sources. Marine ecosystems are of particular interest in this regard. [42] However, unregulated and inappropriate bioprospecting could potentially lead to overexploitation, ecosystem degradation and loss of biodiversity. [43] [44] [45]
However, a more significant factor towards animal extinction is the amount of materials consumed by humans, much higher in the developed world. As an example of chemical effects, the toxin PCB could cause a loss of killer whales on the coast of the United Kingdom.
Significant habitat loss is occurring particularly in seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and coral reefs, all of which are in global decline due to human disturbances. Coral reefs are among the more productive and diverse ecosystems on the planet, but one-fifth of them have been lost in recent years due to anthropogenic disturbances.