Chapter nine - Waleska Reyes

Chapter nine - Waleska Reyes

Chapter nine starts off with the description of Reserve 1202, in Brazil. There are 25 acres of rainforest. But it is controlled by the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, ran by Tom Lovejoy. Lovejoy’s research is supposed to compare his reserve to the rainforest. On earth there are  50 million square miles of acres of land, and humans are in more than 25 million miles of acres of that land.

Kolbert then introduces Mario Cohn-Haft. Cohn-Haft has noticed a decrease in the biodiversity in the mainland. Humans activities like deforestation is blamed for the decrease in the biodiversity.

Humans are affecting certain ecosystems greatly. This chapter specifically mentions animals that are going extinct due to human activities. The theme that connected with the chapter the most is humans alter natural systems. Due to human activities such as forest deforestation and global warming, species are at a disadvantage and not ready to take on these new environments. Many species may not be able to survive in changing climates and atmospheres. Furthermore even some man made structure might not allow them to migrate even if they could.