WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO NATURE, MAN?
Material for
this page was compiled from students compositions. You can also
read some extracts.
History of our
planet has always seen the disappearance of some species. But in
the past they died out very slowly, due to natural causes and the
process took part thousands of years.
Last century experienced very rapid extinction of some animals and plants.
Thousands of species are endangered now. There are many reasons for it connected
with man’s activities.
The population grows every year. People need food and houses. More and more
wild lands are taken, forests are cut down, fields are explored. Animals, birds,
insects lose their food and shelter and consequently die out. The places where
forests were are left often without planting new trees. Toxic waste products
of mining and industry are put in the fields. Such process as soil erosion
and, as a result, deserting of a territory begins. It means that these lands
will never be fertile again and without plants rivers will dry up.
Large cities with smoky industrial enterprises appear all over the world today.
The by-products of their activity pollute the air, water, and land. Every year
world industry and transport pollutes the atmosphere with about 1000 million
tons of dust and other harmful substances. Poisonous gases produced by factories
and vehicles exhausts mix with water in atmosphere and fall as acid rains.
Clouds are delivered to t far distances so such rains destroy forests, lakes,
rivers, and fields. Toxic metals are dumped in the sea. Fish and sea animals
feel a lack of oxygen and die out. The great threat to the environment are
nuclear power stations. For example, Chernobyl accident in 1986 caused a lot
of damage to vast territories. The evergreen trees became yellow, nothing grows
on the fields and lots of animals disappeared forever.
Everything is connected in nature by invisible links. Every living being has
its role in. Every plant, insect, animal is food or shelter for another. When
we destroy one thing we break the connection, so other things, which depended
on it, can disappear too. Nowadays ecologists don’t speak about extinction
of species, they already speak about breaking of ecological balance, about
ecological disaster.
For collage picture we used own photos and drawings.
