After watching the documentary titled ” Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction” I discovered how much humans are impacting the loss of biodiversity in certain plant and animal species. The documentary mentions that half of Earth’s population and diversity of plants and animals are rapidly declining. Species are becoming extinct as the rate of evolution exceeds the rate of evolution of some species. Scientists have termed it the biggest crisis as many populations have been reduced. For example, 90% of the big ocean fish population has gone down since 1950 and 50% of freshwater fish have gone down since 1987
We as humans cannot live without other creatures, therefore biodiversity is important to the survival of humans. Extinction has effects on humans as biochemical genes from plants are used for agriculture and pharmaceutical systems. About 120 drugs and medicine are derived from plants.
We can see that we all need each other on this earth but humans are more concerned on economic systems rather than what is more important which is Earth. And once species are gone it is irreversible, therefore we need to care for what we have left so as not to lose it.
Some ways to save planet Earth and reduce the rate of extinction include;
- Avoiding the destruction of the habitats of other species to build our infrastructure
- Recycling products
- Reducing water consumption
- Educating ourselves on endangered species
- Reducing the use of plastics
To learn more about the mass extinction you can the documentary through this link https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/festival/play/7350/call-of-life–facing-the-mass-extinction
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 