Biodiversity In Namibia Essay

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Wanjui(2013) defined biodiversity as” the biological diversity which includes the variety of the whole species present on earth”. Varieties of animals, plants, microorganisms and their genes, water ecosystems, terrestrial and marine ecosystems make up biodiversity. In Namibia, changing of wildlife habitat to other land uses, illegal poaching and climate change are the major contributing factors to diversity loss. Indeed biodiversity in Namibia is threatened so much that in response to the threat of biodiversity loss, the Namibia National biodiversity Program(NNBP) was established in 1994(Konjore,2006,para.9). The program is in place to compensate, save, preserve and make up for the loss of wildlife. Indeed biodiversity loss is serious both …show more content…

Over the past centuries the climate has changed significantly in terms of average weather conditions. Such significant variations in climatic conditions are referred to as ‘climate change’ (Ministry of Environment and Tourism (2003). One of the repercussions of climate change is the observable increase in global temperature during the past years (Topfer and Hunter 2002). High temperature causes the increase in sea level as polar ice caps melt, submerging low lying areas and small inlands. Rainfall decreases severely causing a fall in food production therefore a loss of some species. However if rainfall increases it can cause the spread of diseases amongst plants, humans and animals through. Flood washes away biodiversity, submerge it and even kill it, similarly draught causes the death of species as there is low rainfall and scarcity of food. Furthermore climate can alter PH levels in rivers, dams and more specifically in oceans and on land. Therefore favorable living conditions are changed to unbearable conditions thus increasing pollution both on land and water. Contaminating, destroying and displacing biodiversity which eventually leads to the loss of the weaker species detrimentally. In addition Charles (2008) stated that spontaneous temperature change can affect living organism’s reproduction life cycle due as the change in temperature can sometimes oppose the

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