3.2 Human impact on biodiversity

• Direct: overharvesting, poaching, illegal pet trade

• Indirect: habitat loss, climate change, pollution, invasive alien species

• Most ecosystems subject to multiple impacts

• Effects amplified when combined

• Reduce biodiversity through competition, predation, diseases/parasites

• Global conservation status assessment

• Based on: population numbers, rate changes, breeding potential, geographic range, threats

• Status ranks: least concern (LC) to extinct (EX)

• Publicizes species vulnerability

• Allows selection of conservation priorities and management strategies

• Extinct species due to human activity

• Critically endangered species

• Species improved by intervention

• Overexploitation of shared natural resources

• Tension between individual self-interest and sustainable development

• Examples: fish stocks, ocean plastic pollution