By: Renwick McLean Published August 29, 2006
The Canary Islands are mostly dry and hot, but they are home to over 4000 endemic species. There is an area called Cruz del Carmen in Tenerife, Canary Islands and it's a tropical forest that has very high biodiversity. On average, scientists discover a new species or subspecies every six days and any handful of soil can easily contain four or five native species of insects. Although Cruz del Carmen is teeming with life, other parts of the Canary Islands are under attack. Invasive species cut the percentage of indigenous plant species in half and now only one out of two plant species are native. Generally, a foreign species invades the Canary Islands every 17 days, and every six months one of those foreign species seriously threatens the native species and habitats. The regional government says about 20 indigenous species are endangered. The centeral government in Madrid isn't acting swiftly enough to correct the problem, so the director of the regional government's environmental protection agency thinks Madrid should give them more authority to monitor what comes into the area.
In my opinion, I think that the central government in Madrid should take the issue seriously and make it a priority to maintain the habitats and native species on the Canary Islands. I think the environmental protection agency should have more power to observe the borders and keep the foreign species out. The invasive species problem will rapidly become worse if we don't focus our attention on it. The consequeces of leaving the environment under attack will be disasterous! One out of four plant species used to be native. Now it's only one out of two. Soon the foreign species will completely take over!
Questions
- If you were the central government in Madrid what would you decide to do?
- How do you think the invaders made the percentage of native plant species decrease?
- Do you think that low biodiversity is going to be a significant problem in the future? Explain your answer.
I think that if the environmental ministry in Spain will not do anything to prevent this disaster, all of the native species who live in harmony at the canary will be destroyed. That will happen because the invasive species will eat the food that belongs to the native species and by that will destroy the food chain in canary island.
ReplyDeleteabout your question: 1.if i was the central government in Spain i would decide to stop spilling soil in the canary island and by that stopping the invasive species to grow.
2.the invasive species ate all the food of the native species and by that made them less reproduce and by that decrease their numbers.
3.its going to be a very significant in the future because the native and local species will be destroyed and the local and unique organism would increase in number.
If i was the centreal government in Madrid i would be doing everything i can in order to stop, or lessen the amount of invasive species coming into the canary islands. If they dont act fast there may be no more nativ e plants or animals left there.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason the native species are decreasing is mostly because of competition for food and shelter. If it is difficult for 100 species to share food then it will be almost impossible for over 200 species to share food and shelter.
No i do not think that low biodiversitywill be a problem in the future. I think this mostly because if species lessen then there must be m,ore to take its place. Also because you said that there was alredy a high Biodiversity to start with i think they Canary islands should be okay for at least a few hundred years. But i think in order to save their netive species governments need to act as soon as possible to help.
If I was in the government I would do anything I could to stop this! This is the native animals home. How would you feel if you just watched your home get destoryed? Not very happy! The introduces species made it harder for them to find food and shelter after they came in. They began to take everything away from them. Yes, if we don't have a lot of animals in the area we live everything can be effected. The food chain effects humans to.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that major governments like the one in Madrid realize the full importance of these kinds of environmental problems. If I had some sort of influence in the government I would definitely try and solve this problem because eventually, the change in biodiversity, food chain, and animal/plant life is going to begin to affect us. Governments have been putting environmental issues on the back burner for so long that they no longer know how serious these issues are gettting. The government needs to be aware that these issues WILL catch up with us and it won't be pretty.
ReplyDeleteAlso, besides the fact that WE'RE being affected by this, we're also killing living things homes and habitats. These animals have lived and thrived in these regions their entire lives and now, because we won't stop all the invasive species from coming in, they're dying. We have to think about how these issues affect them aswell.