Environment & the Challenges of Global Governance

Environment & the Challenges of Global Governance
Endangered Animal Species
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Endangered Animal Species
The earth as the planet where living things live is meant to supply them with natural resources needed for survival. Some of these are clear air, water, fuel, and food. For human beings, contact with the nature enhances mental and physical wellbeing. Biodiversity makes life more enjoyable. However, biodiversity is currently threatened as several animals and plants risk extinction. One of the major contributors to this issue is climate change in that some animals are unable to survive in high temperatures. All over the world, much of the biodiversity is decreasing. In addition, most wildlife areas are too disjointed making it impossible for some animals and plants to survive as a result of pollution.[Thom Van Dooren, Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 82.]
Endangering of some animal and plant species is not a countrywide problem but rather a worldwide issue. Almost each country across the globe is losing a certain type of plants or animals. This is because the factors leading to this issue are evident in every country. While Heise argues that much threat to animals and plants is by climatic change, he also notes the participation of people through actions such as hunting, shooting, overharvesting (such as is the case of fish), and uncontrolled deforestation. It is also notable that while climatic change plays a significant role in endangering these species, it results more human actions. Climatic change is more as a result of manufacturing companies and pollution, some products such as cars and carbon emissions, and deforestation.[Ursula K. Heise, Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 67.]
As a global concern, the problem needs immediate action because it targets one animal or plant after another. This means that the problem is in form of a circle. It will never end naturally since after one animal if extinct, more are affected through continuous human action and climatic change. If the trend continues, people will forget most animal and plant species that are evident today. It is also notable that the problem is of urgency because most species that are threatened are affected by a combination of factors. A good example is the mountain hare in the Europe, which is affected by a combination of environmental, societal, governmental and regulatory, corporate, and educational factors among others. To start with, as a result of environmental factors, the climate and lack of snow in the mountains put the mountain hare’s natural camouflage mechanism at stake. In addition, the species is endangered by societal factors in that “Thousands of mountain hares are shot and snared in Scotland because they allegedly carry a disease which reduces the number of grouse available to be shot for ‘sport’”. Further, even with governmental and regulatory strategies to protect endangered species, they are not clear and people do not understand what is required from them.[Errol Fuller, Lost Animals - Extinction and the Photographic Record (London: Bloo...