Twenty-five percent of drugs prescribed in the U.S. contain chemical compounds derived from wild species. The cure for AIDS or cancer may be hidden in the vast tracts of still unexplored rainforests. By destroying forests today, we are limiting our options for treating illness in the future. As more and more people inhabit the planet, less room, or habitat, is available for other species. Our behavior has caused broad-scale modifications of the natural world, affecting animal and plant life in many ways.
Humans claim more resources today than any other organism on Earth.
In the process of making room for our growing numbers, we plow under and pave over, split up and cut down, drain, pollute, contaminate, and sell away previously intact landscapes, and thereby destroy invaluable habitat for thousands of species. Industrial and agricultural pollutants poison individuals of many species and make their habitats unfit for continued survival. As habitats dwindle, so does the possibility for species to move and migrate. This becomes particularly dangerous given the threat of global climate change. Should weather patterns change, plants and animals cannot shift their range as they were able to in the evolutionary past, and are thus more vulnerable to extinction.