Biodiversity-friendly practices
Agriculture significantly contributes to biodiversity loss with the expanding effects due to the changes in consumption patterns and growing populations. Agriculture destroys biodiversity by converting natural habitats to intensely managed systems and releasing pollutants, including greenhouse gases (Hooper et al., 2012). Food value chains further elevate the adverse outcomes through energy use, transport, and excessive toxic waste dumping. The reduction of the food system’s toll, especially on biodiversity, has remained a significant problem.
Modern farming practices have undermined the sustainability of large land areas, and land-use intensification has not solved biodiversity loss and has only amplified the issue. These practices associated with agricultural production rely heavily on crop production interventions that maximize monocultural plant growth and safeguard agro-ecosystems and yields from pests (Reich et al., 2012). These have also placed more immediate pressures on water supplies and the use of land. This has led to elevated levels of pollutions and the loss of natural biodiversity services essential for biodiversity, food, and agriculture production.
Harmful farming practices have led to soil systems critical for numerous crops being placed under severe threat from soil erosion, nutrient imbalance, and the loss of micro-organisms that support plant growth and regulation of water flows. Additionally, land clearances that support monocultural crops on larger fields mean less typical applications such as hedgerows are applied, resulting in less food and nesting resources for wildlife and the continuity of natural habitats (Tsiafouli et al., 2015). These are compromised as the use of industrial farming leaves habitats with rich resources becoming isolated.
Global economic expansion and the growing world population have resulted in more land-use everywhere. This has destroyed biodiversity services; for example, between 2000 and 2011, the number of bird species has become endangered due to increased land use by seven percent (Cardinale et al., 2012). During this period, the planet lost six percent of its ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the air because vegetation planted on newly developed farmland cannot sufficiently absorb much carbon dioxide as that in natural habitats.
Biodiversity is essential for global food production and strengthens agricultural resilience to stresses that can lead to crop failure. However, most plant, animal, and micro-organism species that make up the earth’s biosphere are rapidly disappearing. This decline in natural plant and animal species poses a massive threat to the world’s capacity to produce food for the rising population. Additionally, global food production is itself a significant contributing factor to the continuous loss of biodiversity.
For most plastic industrial facilities, the burning of fossil fuels leads to releasing dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere. These industries dump toxic chemical waste into the ocean yearly, leading to an excessive amount of pollution that completely disrupts ecosystems.
Globally, around one-third of all the world fish stocks are being over-fished, and more than half have reached the sustainable limit, which threatens marine resources worldwide (Díaz, Fargione, Chapin III & Tilman, 2006). Aquaculture is among the fastest-growing animal food production sectors; however, fish-farming systems regularly utilize non-native fish species, leading to indigenous species’ displacement. This adversely affects biodiversity, which numerous local communities in various regions depend on.
Due to a lack of understanding of the impact of biodiversity loss and how it affects various species and their habitats and the state of ecosystems, there are increased numbers of agricultural species such as livestock and fish breeds, which are at risk of extinction. Individuals and industries’ attempts to increase the number of biodiversity-friendly practices have been inadequate (Cardinale et al., 2012). There have been sustainable uses and conservation of resources and the integration of ecosystem management, which has taken a lot of time to implement such interventions. These efforts’ slow pace is mainly due to governments and industries undervaluing and managing the protection and conservation of species.