Introduction
Biodiversity is the number , The topic deals with the various activities which local actors engage on towards biodiversity, which can impose a very big threat to the nature. Habitat loss has been and remained the biggest threat to the biodiversity (Brooks et al 2002).T
The Nature of the Risk; These deals with the different activities the people in the communities engage in order to derive their livelihood and for their well-being in return impose a great threat to the biodiversity in the ecosystem. Biodiversity loss set in when there is nature as a threat unfavourable Factors like human caused (indiscriminate killing of wild animals and exploitation of plants, Human population growth). Natural disaster (earth quake, volcanic eruption)
Human population growth, is one of the human caused factor that help to impose threat to the nature. The geometric increase in the population has recently led to the continuous search for more land for the purpose of agriculture production such as food, livestock grazing etc. Moreover, humans tends to reside in an area of high biodiversity which usually have relatively rich soils and other natural attractions, leading to great threat to biodiversity, especially the area that have so many endemic species.
Deforestation is another main factor that cause biodiversity loss. This is the conversion of forest to other permanent non forested land use like city development, building of houses, construction of railways and roads etc. (Van Kooten and Bulte 2000). This is primarily a concern for most developing countries of the tropics (Myers, N.1994) as it is shrinking areas of the region of the tropical forest (Barraclough and Ghimire 2000) causing destruction of habitat of most animals that resides in the area and also promoting greenhouse effect.
Moreover, Overexploitation of animals is another nature of risk that encourages biodiversity loss. The peoples activities connected with indiscriminate capturing and harvesting (hunting and farming) a renewable natural resources in a particular area is excessively immoderate the resources itself may not be available as for example, is the case of Titus, cod, crab and many other species the people capture without giving them enough time to reproduce their young ones that can succeed them.
Risk Perception; The risk perception sets in when the people in the community have directly or indirectly distorted the ecosystem. The risk perception is the outcome, effects or consequences the people and biodiversity faces as a result of the choice of risk made by the local actors. These most a times cause a great damage to the ecosystem with their valuable services to the nature (biodiversity) and the people in the community. Therefore, some of these perceptible losses includes;
Steady increase in the carbon dioxide level; because of disruption in the carbon cycle the nature will lead to rise in carbon dioxide level and which is able to cause global warming. These as a result of an increase in the deforestation which could as well expose the community to erosion hence driving biodiversity loss.
Extinction of species; This is an irreversible loss of biodiversity when species are lost and there is also lost of necessary component of biodiversity required to keep the earths life supporting systems which reduces the biospheres capacity to support human life. Also, an important biological resources like medical or agricultural or economic value will be lost forever.
Loss of livelihood; as the large number of people in the community depends on the bio resources for subsistence use for their livelihood.
Other consequences includes; Adverse effects on local climate and water flow, Decrease of overall population size of species and loss of geographical range and Reduction of genetic diversity of crop species.
The Local risk culture like indiscriminate killing of wild animals’ indiscriminate cutting down of trees into logs, and burning of woods for energy are attached with spiritual and religious values to ecosystem. These are mostly done during festive periods, their happiness are majorly derive from this activities which people are awakened to participate. There are other alternative for people to accept this risk which is through practising of afforestation and breeding of new animals in order to restore the biodiversity that was lost.
There are numerous benefits that made the people in the area to engage in this activities. Firstly, for generation of an income. Timbers are cut down into logs and are sold in the foreign markets in return provides a huge money for the communities, these are used to provide basic amenities such as health care centres, quality education for their children, pipe borne water etc.
Furthermore, the wild animals like tiger, elephant kill by this people serve as a good source of proteineous food for their families and it provide also raw materials which are used for the production of their clothes. They local actors also belief in their traditional herbal drugs which are gotten from these animals and most plants. However, these impose the risk of biodiversity loss to the community and nature generally.
The local actors have an incentive to contribute to the cost of the biodiversity loss prevention. These could be made through direct or indirect payment. Direct payment is considered to be more workable than indirect payment .For an example, integrating conservation development projects-an indirect incentive planned to allow local communities to improve their standard of living by capturing foreign willingness to pay for biodiversity. Conservation have in practice infrequently been integrated into ongoing incentives for conservation. Generally, long term success for these response methods depends on the meeting economic and basic social needs of the communities whose well-being already rely on varying degrees on biodiversity product and the ecosystem services.
The risk and the benefit are unevenly distributed, because it is parasitic relationship. The people in this area derives the livelihood from these biodiversity through overexploitation of natural resources like killing of wild animals for food, cutting down of tress which can result to `tragedy of commons` where there is high dependent of common resources until there is limited or absence of the resources. Secondly, there is an unequal distribution of benefit and risk among the biodiversity and vulnerable people who mostly depend directly on an ecosystem services like subsistence farmers, the poor rural and traditional societies, often face the most serious and immediate risks from biodiversity loss. Firstly, the people are the one that rely on most safety net gotten from the biodiversity of this natural ecosystems in terms of food security and sustained way to pharmaceutical and medical products, construction equipment, and fuel from natural hazards like storms and flood. However, in many cases the provision of services to the most privileged sectors of society is subsidised but allowing the most vulnerable to pay most cost of the biodiversity losses, for an e.g. subsistence fishermen in the face of intensive commercial fishing and agriculture. Finally, the loss of biodiversity-dependent ecosystem services is likely to make pronounce inequality and marginalization of the society by limiting their access to basic materials for a healthy life and their freedom of choice and action.
As a greenie (environmental protectionist) the high degradation of biodiversity in this community is due to high demand and dependency of the people on natural resource available, however, some political policies when strategized can help to curtail the high degradation of biodiversity loss. These can be achieved by the following;
Government should mandate its ministry of education to consider ecology as a key subject to students at all level starting from primary to tertiary, this could help to inculcate discipline by enlightening them on the need to conserve the nature. For example, practice of an afforestation etc.
Secondly, Government should work in pari-pasu (hand in hand) with the local actors, so as the policies implemented should be patronised by all without any compromise. These can make the people in the area to willingly report the defaulters to the appropriate authorities’ that are responsible for trailing the offenders.
Economic tools such as fines or charges for harvesting, buying and selling of industrial raw materials, taxation on the conservation of forest land to other purposes and afforestation subsidies can help to improve more sustainable forest management.
A strict policy will not be effective because most of their livelihood is attached to the biodiversity such as income generation, energy, food, shelter and clothing which are the main basic needs of the human in every society. Therefore, government should involve the local actors before making the policies.
Conclusion.
References.
Barraclough S.and Ghimire K.B 2000). Agricultural Expansion and Tropical Deforestation.Earthscan.
Brooks, T.M, Mittermeier R.A, Mittermeier, C.G, Rylanda A.B, Konstant W.R, Flick P.,Pilgrim 2002 ). Habitat Loss and Extinction in the Hotspots of Biodiversity. Conservation Biology 16: 909-923.
MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). And Ecosystem Human Well-being. Island Press, Washington D.C.
Myers, N. 1994. Tropical Deforestation: Rates and pattern in the causes of tropical deforestation. The economic and statistical analysis of factors giving rise to the loss of tropical forest. Dpp 27-40.UCL Press.
Van Kooten, G.C and Bulte, E.H 2000. The economics of nature. Managing biological assists Black wells.