39. The replacement of virgin forest with plantations of trees, usually monocultures, is rarely adequately analyzed. Yet this can seriously compromise a biodiversity which the new species being introduced does not accommodate. Similarly, wetlands converted into cultivated land lose the enormous biodiversity which they formerly hosted. In some coastal areas the disappearance of ecosystems sustained by mangrove swamps is a source of serious concern.

But forests around the world (click here) are under threat from deforestation, jeopardizing these benefits. Deforestation comes in many forms, including fires, clear-cutting for agriculture, ranching and development, unsustainable logging for timber, and degradation due to climate change. This impacts people’s livelihoods and threatens a wide range of plant and animal species. Some 46-58 thousand square miles of forest are lost each year—equivalent to 36 football fields every minute....

When Tropical Rainforests are plundered for profiteering there is a great deal of biodiversity lost. 

Tropical Rainforests are DENSE in their composition. There are at least four layers of chlorophyll to a tropical rainforest. Each layer survives on less and less direct sunlight. It is not very different than the type of plants people look for to bring variety to their yards. Some need direct and strong sunlight and others do not and won't survive in all that light due to their chlorophyll TYPE and it's ability to function depending on the photon light coming in.

Monotone forests, otherwise known as plantation forests, such as this palm oil plantation grown after destroying rainforest in Sumatra removes an incredible amount of chlorophyll from Earth's surface, while exposing the forest floor to burning. The forest floor is frequently peat, which is dense with dead carbon. The burning returns dead and decaying carbon back to the Earth's troposphere rather than allowing the detritivores to break down the debris of the forest floor and neatly dispose of it.

In addition to chlorophyll lost, there is also mass destruction of habitat and catastrophic loss of species. 


40. Oceans not only contain the bulk of our planet’s water supply, but also most of the immense variety of living creatures, many of them still unknown to us and threatened for various reasons. What is more, marine life in rivers, lakes, seas and oceans, which feeds a great part of the world’s population, is affected by uncontrolled fishing, leading to a drastic depletion of certain species. Selective forms of fishing which discard much of what they collect continue unabated. Particularly threatened are marine organisms which we tend to overlook, like some forms of plankton; they represent a significant element in the ocean food chain, and species used for our food ultimately depend on them.

Does the First World every learn that abundance is a fallacy? When global fish stocks crash due to unregulated use of the fisheries, the First World citizen simply moves onto the next species offered by ingenious chefs. The people of developing countries doesn't have that ability. they are stuck with the fact their fisheries are grossly depleted and there is nothing they can do about it. China has aquaculture, but, they often cause problems with native species and the pollution that results from the floating pens. 

...By the mid-1950s, redfish stocks (click here) throughout the Northwest Atlantic were heavily exploited, with peak landings of 130,000 metric tons in 1952 (up from just 100 metric tons in the early 1930s). Unfortunately, Acadian redfish grows slowly, lives a long time, and has low reproductive rates, making it vulnerable to overfishing. Due to these characteristics, Acadian redfish couldn't tolerate this heavy fishing pressure and the population crashed. Harvests and demand for the species subsequently plummeted.... 

41. In tropical and subtropical seas, we find coral reefs comparable to the great forests on dry land, for they shelter approximately a million species, including fish, crabs, molluscs, sponges and algae. Many of the world’s coral reefs are already barren or in a state of constant decline. “Who turned the wonderworld of the seas into underwater cemeteries bereft of colour and life?”[25] This phenomenon is due largely to pollution which reaches the sea as the result of deforestation, agricultural monocultures, industrial waste and destructive fishing methods, especially those using cyanide and dynamite. It is aggravated by the rise in temperature of the oceans. All of this helps us to see that every intervention in nature can have consequences which are not immediately evident, and that certain ways of exploiting resources prove costly in terms of degradation which ultimately reaches the ocean bed itself.

This is from Duke University

Coral bleaching (click here) is defined as the loss of zooxanthellae by the coral host (van Oppen, 2008; Hughes et al., 2003). Photosynthetic pigment is lost with the symbiont, which leaves behind only translucent coral tissue and the more familiar white, or bleached, calcerous skeleton. This rejection of the symbiosis occurs from thermal stress. Specifically, this happens when sea surface temperatures exceed summer maxima by 1 to 2 C for 3 to 4 weeks (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2007).

  42. Greater investment needs to be made in research aimed at understanding more fully the functioning of ecosystems and adequately analyzing the different variables associated with any significant modification of the environment. Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another. Each area is responsible for the care of this family. This will require undertaking a careful inventory of the species which it hosts, with a view to developing programmes and strategies of protection with particular care for safeguarding species heading towards extinction.