c) The disappearance of rare species of plants and animals
Now the new terms were born: instead of «dying out animals» more often tell «disappearing animals». There are many endangered species: the greater horseshoe bat, the Siberian (Amur) tiger, the spectacled bear, the orchids etc.
The influence of the man on wild animals appears in two ways: direct influence(destruction or, on the contrary, protection, saving) and indirect influence through changes of their existence conditions. People are ploughing up of steppes, cutting of woods, irrigation and other modifications of an earth surface changing its shape in radical way. As a result the whole complexes of animals begin to disappear because they have no place to live. But it is only one side of a question. Direct influence of the man is a terrible scourge for the animals. The poachers armed with long-range guns, high-speed motor boats, searchlights and automobiles exterminate hundreds of thousands of birds and animals. Careless business managers pollute seas, lakes and rivers by petroleum or by sewage.
Unreasonable planning of hunting of fur-bearing animals without registration of their number, unreasoned acclimatisation, and fashion whims stimulating sudden increase of demand on some animals — all these reasons have a common consequence — destruction of animals and of biological diversity.
The ways to solve the problems
We don’t know if it is late or not to solve all these problems and to save nature. Even scientists cannot predict the global changes in future. But we all know that environmental protection is of a universal concern and at the same time the responsibility for saving nature wonders, the balance of the ecosystem lies on each person.
There are a lot of special organizations which try to find the right ways to save wild animals, land, plants and people. Their basic purpose is to draw attention of the public, authorities, mass media and business to the existed problems of global nature and particular natural areas. The most known are:
- the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
- Greenpeace (here is "Greenpeace Russia")
- the Royal Society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (the RSPCA)
The RSPCA tries to protect animals from bad use. It operates big nation campaigns aimed at lost pets, circus animals.
The WWF rescues several species of animals, mammals as well as birds. These organization also helps to create more than 250 National parks.
Greenpeace began its work 20 years ago from saving whales. And now Greenpeace is a world-famous organization, which saves plants, animals and people. These organization, want to rescue animals, to help them to survive and to save jungle rain forests, which are in danger of destruction.
They are non-profit and nongovernmental organizations. They unite people of different colours living in different continents and speaking different languages. The common mission of these organization are preserving life on the earth in its full variety.
And we can sat that all the people, not even members of the organizations, must respect the nature, not spoil and not damage it because our environment is our own home and we have to live in it.
The future projections
We can say that mankind has a crisis. What does it mean?
At the present time the Earth accomodates more than 5 billion people. Half of which are undernourished. A total of 4 million deaths occur each year from starvation. Mankind has finally realised the threat of increasing population and has faced the fact that something must be done. The food-supply increase lags considerably behind the immense growth of population. Besides conditions for crops growth steadily become worse due to numerous kinds of environmental pollution. And worst of all, today’s man consistently contributes to his own deadly crisis.
We have got too many cars, too many factories, too much wastes and carbon dioxide, too little water and food deficiency — all that can be easily traced to abundant human population. That is why many western scientists say that our world is going through an ecological crisis which will mean the gradual destruction of the human race. Our scientists are not that pessimistic, although they do think that man’s increased influence on the planet is posing a growing threat to the biosphere. It is not too late to forestall what could be drastic and irreversible changes in the environment and ensure that the world will be a healthy place for the present and future generations to live in.