Amber Lee

The world we live in is a naturally diverse one, however people don’t consider the importance of biodiversity and how it affects us. In this discussion I intend to explain my arguments for why a high-level of biodiversity is not only advantageous for humanity, but essential for everyone on earth, and that to have a diverse planet we need diverse food crops, to protect natural predators and to stop destroying entire ecosystems and prevent deforestation.

A lack of biodiversity in human food sources can cause scarcity, and at a moment’s notice in the event that a disease breaks out in that crop the entire food source can become completely unavailable. A prime example is the Great Potato Famine of 1845, when over half of Irelands population of about 8.4 million people were entirely dependant on eating potato. These potatoes were grown in crops with no other variety in plants making them susceptible to disease, so when the potato blight was accidently brought over from North America the potato crops were devastated. The fungus destroys the root, the tube and the leaf leaving nothing left of the plant and no food for the many people dependant on it.  Over 1 million people died from the blight, mostly from starvation and over 1.5 million people immigrated to America. This further led to a political unrest in the UK as many Irish felt that the British government, ruling them at the time, was not helping them through the famine and they felt as though they could only depend on themselves, causing people to revolt in 1848. When crops are grown in variety they are much less susceptible to disease and it also produces better results. 

There have also been cases when removing too many of a species from an environment can lead to risking the entire safety of a biome. As such, when grey wolves were almost hunted to extinction in the late 1800s to early 1900s, the ecosystem of Yellowstone almost fell apart. Grey wolves were perceived as threats by farmers and would often hunt the wolves in an attempt to protect their livestock. This took a hefty toll on the ecosystems of the lower 48 states of the US. In Yellowstone, the last wolf pack was killed in 1926 with only rare sightings of single wolves appearing. The lack of grey wolves in Yellowstone meant that coyotes were left unchecked, grazing animals such as elk and deer populations burst causing over grazing on plants and disease to spread faster having no predator. The overgrazing killed many trees further reducing bird populations and diminishing building materials for beavers. This purge of just one species was enough to make an entire ecosystem crumble, destroying biodiversity, and it wasn’t until 1995 that grey wolves were reintroduced and protected by law, now stabilizing the ecosystem of Yellowstone national park. 

Today we are watching as not only is just one species is being targeted, but many as we sit idly now, watching as deforestation occurs drastically worldwide, ripping apart many forests and many types of forests in the goal of human expansion. Yes, efforts have been made to reduce deforestation, but it still isn’t enough. We are not doing enough. Southeast Asia has one of the highest rates of deforestation, having 15% of the tropical forest. Although the affects of this haven’t fully been made clear yet, it is clear that if we continue this way is only going to lead us to disaster just like the other many, many disasters we’ve already faced, and we still haven’t learnt anything from this. Deforestation is leading humans to our own ruin as well as the entire planets. We lose about 137 species to deforestation every day. If we can’t stop this massacre on biodiversity, our planet will be doomed to collapse.

We have been facing crisis after crisis over centuries of history caused by manmade destruction of biodiversity and it seems that we have learnt very little from these previous actions. But if we grow diverse crops, protect species, and stop deforestation and start reforestation, prove we want change, we can save our biomes, our diverse planet.