Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

Principles of Ecology

Habitat destruction

by Jamie Michael Kass

H

Fields of Study

Agriculture; Animal Husbandry; Biology; Botany; Conservation Biology; Ecology; Ecosystems; Environment; Environmental Technology; Environmentalism; Forestry; Horticulture; Life Sciences; Marine Biology; Oceanography; Zoology

Summary

The destruction of habitat represents a pressing threat to global biodiversity, as habitat loss leads to species extinctions. In the twenty-first century, most habitat destruction is occurring in developing nations, where overpopulation and poverty contribute to the need to convert forestland to agriculture.

Principal Terms

  • deforestation: clearing or thinning of forests by humans to make the land available for other uses

  • ecosystem: a relatively self-sufficient group of communities and their abiotic environment

  • environment: the habitat created by the interaction of the abiotic and biotic parts of an ecosystem

  • habitat destruction: degradation of a natural landscape so that it becomes functionally incapable of supporting its native species

  • habitat: the specific part of the environment occupied by the individuals of a species

  • monoculture: the use of land for growing only one type of crop

  • population: a group of all the individuals of one species

  • species: a group of similar organisms that are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring

Habitat destruction occurs when human beings remove or significantly alter the land or aquatic communities where animal species dwell. Human civilization was built on the practice of altering land for human purposes, such as the burning of forest for pasture, logging for construction materials, the draining of marshland for development, and mining for resource extraction. In the twenty-first century, however, the density of human population on the earth, combined with modern industrial technology, means that humans’ alterations by humans of the natural landscape greatly exceed the ability to render land productive for human needs. Further, the most biodiverse ecoregions of the world, tropical rain forests and coral reefs, have seen rapid increases in habitat destruction. Tropical forests are down to about 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) from the nearly 1.6 billion hectares (4 billion acres) they occupied approximately two hundred years ago. One-fifth of coral reefs have been destroyed, and another one-fifth have been severely degraded.

Red Panda - Colchester Zoo, Colchester, Essex, England - September 2008. By Keven Law from Los Angeles, USA.

PREcology_p0197_1.jpg

Habitat destruction is most often caused by expansion of agriculture. Planting crops or raising livestock requires wide expanses of bare soil or grassy plane. When suitable land is unavailable naturally, many land types can be converted to agricultural uses: Wetlands can be drained, forests can be logged, deserts can be irrigated. Although the productivity of such converted land may be relatively high, biodiversity and ecosystem functionality drop harshly. Modern agriculture is often monocultural (devoted to a single type of crop), without topographical complexity, and devoid of any plants not being grown for either sale or consumption. Therefore, the available niches for native species are nearly all removed.

Other causes of habitat destruction include mining, ocean trawling, oil prospecting, urban sprawl, and infrastructure development. These practices directly destroy ecosystems, but other practices indirectly degrade surrounding ecosystems. Desertification is caused by overgrazing of livestock and excessive extraction of groundwater, which render the land unusable, usually affecting communities that already live in resource-impoverished landscapes. Deforestation on a small scale can cause ecosystem collapse by dividing a forest into fragments, rendering the land unfit to support animals with large ranges and plants with wide dispersal needs. Coral degradation is rarely caused by direct destruction; rather, coral is negatively affected by increases in water temperature and changes in water chemistry resulting from climate change and industrial pollution.

Depending on terrain characteristics and climate patterns, landscapes naturally acquire ecosystem types that are functional to their locations. When humans alter these land types for unnatural purposes, the consequences can be deleterious. Modern examples include the levy system in New Orleans, which replaced an extensive natural wetland buffer; when Hurricane Katrina hit the city in 2005, the levy system failed, and the city was flooded. The devastation that resulted when Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake in 2010 was magnified by the high rate of deforestation, and therefore high rate of soil erosion, in that nation. Maintaining functional natural landscapes is increasingly seen as a priority, and restoration efforts are being developed to restore native habitat types even in urban areas.

Developing Countries

Since the mid-twentieth century, most of the world’s habitat destruction has taken place in developing countries, as developed countries have already exhausted their most accessible resources and altered much of their land for development. For example, nearly 50 percent of wetlands in the United States and 60–70 percent of European wetlands have been destroyed.

The main factors contributing to land alteration in the developing world are poverty, overpopulation, lack of sustainable technology, and adherence to cultural practices. For example, many communities in the developing world frequently cook with charcoal, as electricity and natural gas are in short supply. Charcoal is acquired through the burning of forestland, and the results are mass deforestation and air pollution. New technologies that do not require large monetary investments, such as solar ovens and permaculture techniques, are increasingly being offered as solutions to poor communities that rely on habitat destruction to survive.

Many farmers in the developing world are wary of foreign technology and are unwilling to risk the failure of a crop to adopt a new technology, even if it could result in increased production. Because of this wariness, education is needed to help farmers ease into the use of new technologies that can benefit them, and the environment, in the long term. For ecological conservation to be sustainable, it must be beneficial for both the farmers and the environment.

Future Solutions

The ability of humans to alter the land for their own gain is one of the main reasons humans have been able to expand over the planet and live in nearly every climate. Since the dawn of large civilizations, humans have increasingly acquired the means to reap more and more from the environment, sometimes altering it so severely that they have eradicated whole communities of species. Mass extinctions occurred in prehistoric times during the early years of humanity, but the species that died off at that time were mostly those targeted for food. In contrast, in modern times entire ecosystems are destroyed for resources and agriculture, and this can only have increasingly negative effects on both the natural world and human habitations.

In order to measure the direct importance for humans of many landscapes, scientists have defined the ecosystem services provided by the landscapes. These services, such as erosion prevention, storm buffering, soil productivity, and wildfire prevention, are often given monetary equivalents to introduce them into a system of economics.

Other approaches to reducing habitat destruction include the use of modern techniques to increase agricultural productivity that can reduce the need to clear more land for farming. Planting native species, creating tree-shaded spaces, and increasing topographical heterogeneity on agricultural land can increase biodiversity without having a large impact on production. In addition, the incorporation of natural areas around cities to buffer weather, prevent erosion, and safeguard watersheds may save much money in repairs and provide protection against disasters.

Further Reading

1 

Barbault, R., and S. D. Sastrapradja. “Generation, Maintenance, and Loss of Biodiversity.” Global Biodiversity Assessment. Ed. V. H. Heywood. New York: Cambridge UP, 1995.

2 

Cincotta, Richard P., and Robert Engelman. Nature’s Place: Human Population Density and the Future of Biological Diversity. Washington, DC: Population Action Intl, 2000.

3 

Pullin, Andrew S. “Effects of Habitat Destruction.” Conservation Biology. New York: Cambridge UP, 2002

4 

Tibbetts, John. “Louisiana’s Wetlands: A Lesson in Nature Appreciation.” Environmental Health Perspectives 114 (2006): A40–A43.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Kass, Jamie Michael. "Habitat Destruction." Principles of Ecology, edited by Jennifer Heath, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=PREcology_0079.
APA 7th
Kass, J. M. (2019). Habitat destruction. In J. Heath (Ed.), Principles of Ecology. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Kass, Jamie Michael. "Habitat Destruction." Edited by Jennifer Heath. Principles of Ecology. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.