Today was exactly what Saturdays should be. This morning CJ and I got up and cooked breakfast together, followed by a hike by the Kaw River (where we saw mountain UNICYCLERS... Just like mountain bikers, but with only one wheel. Maybe among the top ten most impressive things I've ever seen). We spent the afternoon grilling lunch and doing homework on the back patio in the unseasonably warm temperatures.
Warm sunshine on my face reminded me that I should reflect on my recent Caribbean excursion before it gets too far back in my memory. This semester for me began with a 10-day trip to the US Virgin Islands for a class called Biodiversity Law. Biodiversity is a word created a few decades ago to refer to the biological diversity of species, ecosystems, and genetic variation.
As a class, Biodiversity Law related to our current system of protecting biodiversity through laws and the court system, and discussions of what could be done from a legal standpoint to more effectively protect biodiversity. It was very worthwhile to take this class on-location in the Virgin Islands, a place with both unique biodiversity and unique pressures from human development on its biodiversity.
Below are some pictures I took during our class excursion to Botany Bay on St. Thomas (check out my professor's description of that day), with some facts, thoughts, and quotes (taken from my lecture notes) thrown in between each picture.
Biodiversity loss is an environmental issue, but it is qualitatively different from other environmental issues such as air and water quality. Air can be cleaned up, and water can be purified,
but injury to biodiversity cannot be un-done. Once the genetic information evolved over years is lost,
it cannot simply be recovered.
"Managing the natural resources of the earth and conserving biodiversity are the major intellectual challenges of the 21st century. ...Unfortunately, the political battle for the environment will occur in courtrooms, senate subcommittees, op-ed pages and press conferences. How well equipped are ecologists to inform the debates in these trenches?" Dobson, 2000
The acronym "HIPPO" describes the current main causes of extinction in order:
Habitat Destruction (usually by human development),
Invasive species (often introduced through human activity),
Pollution (by humans),
(Over)Population (of humans),
and Overexploitation (by humans)
"How much structure is needed? Imagine if the only function of this article was the transfer of information. Many of the words could be deleted and you would still get the message. It would (we hope) be less pleasant to read... But how many of the words could you delete before the meaning starts to get lost? ... [C]onserving one population of every species is rather like having one of each note in the Mozart concerto... How many species can we lose before we start to affect theway ecosystems function?" Purvis and Hector, 2000.
The world's biological history exhibits an overall gradual rise in biodiversity punctuated by mass extinctions. We are currently experiencing the 6th great extinction in the history of the world,
and it appears to be entirely human-made.
Do we, as humans,
want to go down in history as being the "asteroid"
that caused the 6th great loss of biodiversity?
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