BIOL 1209 Chapter : 20140425 123919
Document Summary
Conservation biology is dedicated to understanding and preserving earth"s biological diversity. Biodiversity - the amazing variety of living organisms that inhabit earth. Most are named species are animals, but most of the organisms are probably not animals! In 1997, an international team calculated that ecosystem services provide trillion in benefits to humanity yearly twice the world"s gross national product. The 2005, another team concluded that 60% of all earth"s ecosystem services are being damaged and used in an unsustainable fashion. New york city water supply from the catskills mountains. But, it was being polluted by sewage and agricultural runoff. City officials determined that it would cost less to protect the mountain ecosystem than to build a water purification plant. The city purchased large tracts of land, keeping them in a reasonably natural state. Most biologists believe that human activities are now causing a sixth mass extinction.
