1. IntroductionThis report is being wrote to give some reasoning on why wildlife conservation matters and is important. The meaning of conservation is the protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and of natural resources such as forests, soil, and water (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 2000).
Human efforts are to prevent the loss of present populations using different techniques such as controls on hunting, importation of non-native species and pollution. Wildlife conservation is important and is not to be mixed up with preservation, preservation suggests wildlife should be left alone with no contact from humans whereas conservation will use human involvement to restore habitats for example.2. The importance of conservation to wildlife2.1 The DodoAs the human population has climbed, the extinction rate of other species has also gone up; indeed, humans began causing extinctions about 45,000 years ago (Conservation of wildlife populations 2007, L.
Scott Mills). The Dodo bird Raphus cucullatus is an extinct flightless bird which once occupied the island of Mauritius (Figure 1) Sailors hunted the bird to extinction and the bird is now recalled as stupid and dumb for not getting out of the way of humans causing their extinction. Many of our other species today are dodos and cannot get out of the way, leading to their extinction if we do not do something about it and protect them and their habitats. (Peter.B.Moyle 1997)2.
2 The EcosystemIt is important to conserves wildlife to conserve our ecosystems. Ecosystems include abiotic factors; temperature, light, humidity, ground structure, rainfall, soil nutrients, wind speed and biotic factors; competition, predation, herbivory, pollination, seed dispersal, symbiosis. The ecosystem keeps nature balanced. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe (John Muir 1911).
Every species of plant or animal interlinks with another playing a specific part within the ecosystem. An animal species may be reliant on a certain plant and if that plant were to go extinct it could mean the same for the animal. The loss of small amounts of species may have little importance now but in the future the result of these losses may jeopardise our own survival. We cannot think that each species is expendable because we will slowly end our world.2.
3 The Economic valueWe can learn a lot form animals and plants which will benefit us. Wildlife also has an economic value, in our normal day to day life we use products of wildlife. For example plants can give us medical value to help cure different health problems like morphine from Opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. If we let species go extinct then we cannot longer learn from them and find cures for today’s problems.2.
4 The Genetic reservoirAll plants and animal species have unknown or undeveloped traits which can be significant to the survival of a species. A gene pool is created when genes from single members of a population are put together, this then becomes representative of that species. These gene pools may become beneficial in the future so it is vital to preserve them. We do not have enough information about the ecosystems balance to let gene pools be wiped out. (Niharika Bhati, 2011)2.5 The Aesthetic valueWildlife conservation is also important for the aesthetic value of a species which will also promotes others to help.
The smell of flowers and the taste of wild berries have no economic value but the beauty of them alone should require us to conserve them. Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike (John Muir 1912).2.6 The impact on livelihoodsDepleting wildlife resources will come as a great impact on those across Latin America, Africa and Asia. These often poor and uneducated people do not have the skills to find other employment and rely on wildlife, not so much for the food or income but to see them through difficult times of unemployment, illness of relatives and crop failure. Those that rely solely on wildlife as an income need the conservation of wildlife to survive.
Wildlife can assist with school fees, festivals and funerals. (The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2008)2.7 Non-native speciesAlthough the values of wildlife are important for conservation it is also important to note that some devastation can come from the rapidly spreading non-native species. This was shown in the Brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) who was a likely cause of the native bird species extinction of over half there population in Guam. Non-native species will prey on and out-compete native species and therefore the prevention of this should be at its highest.
(Janine R. Clemmonds & Richard Buchholz, 1997)2.8 PollutionEverything done by human beings effects wildlife as humans are the dominant creatures on earth. It is necessary to change the life style as well as the thinking patterns of humans and realise that we are connected to all forms of life through the ecosystem. Pollution is one of the main ways habitats are drastically modified.
Pollution has even cause near extinctions for some species for example the Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) who had reproductive failure due to the synthetic chemical DDT until scientists realised what they were doing. (Peter.B.Moyle, 1997)3. ConclusionIf a species exists then it has the right to exist. It has the basic right to carry on existing without being driven to extinction by humans.
Conserving wildlife is not an easy task, the issues of wildlife management are complicated and needs a lot of work on the technical, legal and personal levels. Wildlife can react very sensitively to their habitats therefore it is extremely important to save the habitat if we desire abundance of a species.
