Conservation & Preservation
The careful utilization of a natural resource in order to prevent depletion
to maintain its original or existing state
When it comes to conservation and preservation, many people associate it with acres or large pieces of open space in the world somewhere
'out there'. More than ever it is just as important to preserve every bit of open space we have left including your backyard.
Neighborhood Land, Open Spaces & Original Structures.
Here in Los Angeles these decisions usually boil down to the benefits of these structures and how they contribute to the community, if at all.
Now more than ever, Los Angeles is experiencing an enormous threat to its original and historic structures in many neighborhoods. Developers see these as projects to demolish and metamorphose into over-sized, over-crowded, multi-car holding, completely out-of-character condos or townhouses that stick out like sore thumbs.
In more cases than not, after the demolition of an original structure that we will never be able to recover, these newly developed buildings wind up going bankrupt & have served no purpose, except for the remnants of the damage they have caused. In their development process, they have cut down perfectly healthy 50+ year old mature trees, created garages for additional vehicles and multiplied the population on a quiet little street that has now brought more crime, litter, more GreenHouse Gas Emissions & more stress on our environment, neighbors & wildlife.
HABITAT
The Natural home or environment of an animal, plant or other organism
In Bill Bryson's 'A Short History Of Nearly Everything', he says:
Nobody knows quite how destructive human beings are, but it is a fact that over the last fifty thousand years or so wherever we have gone, animals have tended to vanish, in often astonishingly large numbers.
According to the University of Chicago paleontologist David Raup, the background rate of extinction on Earth throughout biological history has been one species lost every four years on average.
According to one recent calculation, human-caused extinction
now may be running as much as 120,000 times that level.
We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the
singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude
of ways, to make it better.
The Nature Conservancy, has documented that one-third of the plant and animal species in the United States are now at risk of extinction.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v405/n6783/full/405228a0.html
ECOSYSTEM
A biological community of interacting organisms & their physical environment
EACH CREATURE PLAYS A ROLE in our ecosystem. Think of it as a recipe.
A recipe is made up of specific ingredients that when worked together produce functioning, purposeful results.
If you leave one key ingredient out, it doesn't quite work does it. Leave 2 ingredients out & it may not work. Leave 3 or 4 ingredients out, & you've pretty much got nothing.
If we continue to cause the removal & extinction of plants, animals & organisms, we will have nothing.
We get it. You want to keep your plush, green lawn. We promise by giving this comic a quick gander, you will learn something you did not know before. Made by local kids in the Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program.