“All humans depend on services supplied by ecosystems, either directly or indirectly (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).”
Human life wouldn’t survive without healthy ecosystems. Humans are dependent on ecosystem service ranging from pollination of food crops to oxygen from trees and other vegetation. However, human activities are causing the Earth’s greatest extinction of biodiversity (the key to healthy ecosystems). “The observed rates of species extinction in modern times are 100 to 1,000 times higher than the average rates for comparable groups estimated from the fossil record (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).”
This mass extinction is a direct result of humans consuming and destroying ecosystems. Since the beginning of the industrial age, human populations have grown and individual consumption has increased. “Increasing consumption per person, multiplied by a growing human population, are the root causes of the increasing demand for ecosystem services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005).”