The Sixth Extinction: Chapter 9

Humans have developed various different ecosystems often leading to harming the environment since these developments often lead to deforestation, pollution, and a big Carbon footprint. This has led to various reservation projects led by the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project organization. Tom Lovejoy who wanted to protect the forest found the organization, but now they also focused on researching the forest. One of their projects includes the Reserve 1202, 12 acres of forest. In this chapter Kolbert visits this reserve with Mario Cohn-Haft. While they were there, they noticed that the ecosystem of the forest was suffering from a decline of biodiversity. Since the reserve is on a small plot of land, the reason or this could be that a small setback can devastate the diversity of the ecosystem. Compared to 1202, the main forest is actually incredibly diverse and Terry Erwin estimates that the forest contains 30 million species of insects. The diversity of the forest is actually in danger because of deforestation; It is predicted that yearly 5 thousand species go extinct due to deforestation. This proves the importance of reserves because it makes sure that parts of the forest remain untouched. Despite being in his 70s, Lovejov is still dedicated to protecting the environment by educating people and attempting to increase support for the BDFFP. Lovejoy argues that in the past decade several species have gone extinct because of deforestation. I still don’t understand why 1202 is less diverse than the main forest if it remains untouched, shouldn’t the forest that is being affected by people be less diverse?

Kolbert ends the chapter by explaining that the extinction of these species is bigger than just their disappearance because in reality it affects the wellbeing of the other species of the ecosystem, As Cohn-Haft puts it, “When you find one thing that depends on something else that, in turn, depends on something else, the whole series of interactions depends on constancy.” (Kolbert 192) This all goes to show that earth is so interconnected that the survival of several species depends on the survival of another.