Despite knowing about biodiversity’s importance for a long time, human activity has been causing massive extinctions of different species of flora and fauna. In this essay, I would like to identify the causes of this severe phenomenon and propose some corresponding solutions.
A wide range of factors contribute to the extinction of species. First and foremost, overexploitation can be considered as the root of this grave problem. Let’s take poaching of Asian elephants as a classic instance here. Every year, as per the government statistics, hunters illegally poach the forests to hunt down these massive elephants for their valuable ivories that can be sold on the black market at lucrative prices. This results in dwindling of elephant population in Asian regions of Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka. Furthermore, a secondary trigger could be habitat destruction, such as converting forests, grasslands or wetlands for agricultural or industrial development, which will eventually lead to scarcity of animal shelters and posing a grievous hazard of extinction. Lastly, because of pollution from factories and waste products, there is a disruption in the ecosystem and, hence, harm different species to the brink of dying out.
Accordingly, the solutions to the aforementioned issues should also be varied. Priority should be given to enforcement of stringent laws in order to reduce hunting of animals on a large scale. Specifically, the concerned government authorities can impose heavy fines or even imprison the poachers in order to protect the species. In addition to the first urgent solution, a subsequent measure to tackle the challenge of habitat destruction could be to safeguard the animal territories from human encroachment and list them as national conservation areas, so that the endangered species can have a better chance of survival.
In sum, exploitation and habitat destruction of wild species have engendered a wide array of problems; therefore, we should take a borad range of measures, including implementation of stricter regulations and promotion of conservation shelters to address the worrying issue of depletion of species.