7.9 Maintaining Biodiversity

Ways to reverse damaged ecosystems & reduced biodiversity:

  • reduce bad practises (deforestation / dumping waste)

  • Reduce impact of bad practises

Breeding programs

  • improve biodiversity

  • Reduces chance of endangered species to go extinct

  • Breeding in captivity (build up numbers)

    • then reintroduce into wild

Problems:

  • if natural habitat isn’t safe, population of specie may decline again

    • Create protected areas & regenerate rare areas

      • if we do this, breeding programs are not needed

Reducing impact of harmful but necessary practises

  • Government set quotas on things like: how much deforestation is allowed each year

    • how much CO2 is allowed to be released by businesses

  • individuals can recycle (instead of bin) & buy less waste that goes to landfill

    • more land undamaged & fewer toxic chemicals that make their way into environment

Issues

Money

  • protecting biodiversity is expensive

Current standard of living

  • to maintain it, we need to damage the environment

    • fertilisers & pesticides to grow enough food