Population and Sustainability

The Population and Sustainability page discusses how the exponential growth of the human population has impacted the environment, specifically when it comes to other species and their biodiversity. It brings up topics such as species extinction and habitat loss. The purpose of the site, and the page, is to bring attention to these issues and possible solutions to them.

The page I chose to look at was the one that discussed human population growth and oceans. According to the site, marine fish proved fifteen percent of protein that humans consume, and because of this global fisheries are collapsing. On top of overexploitation of fishing in the oceans, and in some fishery cases even full exploitation, there is also a lot of waste discarded into the ocean, contributing to pollution and even habitat destruction.

In order to help bring back the fish populations to a stable condition and make the fisheries sustainable there would have to be a twenty to fifty percent reduction in the fishing of these fish, however with the exponential human population growth the demand for the fish is just increasing as well. If these fish continue to be overexploited their biodiversity is at risk as well as a human food source. As human population continues to grow at an exponential rate, the rate of extinction also continue to grow. Some species of marine life has been overexploited so much that they have had to be put on the threatened species list, including bluefin tuna, abalone, sturgeon, and several species of sharks. Twenty one marine species have gone extinct in the last three hundred year and sixteen of these have completely disappeared within recent years.

On top of the overfishing in the ocean, the marine ecosystem is also being affected by pollution and habitat destruction. Coral is being destroyed by many human impacts such as dredging, and this has a massive impact on the ocean ecosystem since coral is an anchor of biodiversity. Coral supports thousands of fish...