• Question: How Do We Help To Keep The Enviroment Balanced?

    Asked by millie137 to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Good question! I think the answer starts with awareness about what we do and the impacts it has on the environment. Everybody should look at their own lifestyles and figure out what changes they can make to reduce their own impacts. For example, we can all take steps to create less waste. Some things are already becoming common. A lot of people use their own bags for shopping. We see this more in the supermarket than the High Street, but the trend is looking promising. We can make choices to buy things with less packaging. Throw out less food and if possible create a compost pile/bin instead of throwing things out entirely. Reuse things more. Those are all some examples of simple (but not always easy) things that we can do to help the environment.

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi millie137

      Great question!

      An ecosystem (a community of living things that live and interact with each other) – can be very delicate, and even the slightest change can lead to the balance being messed up completely!

      We can keep the environment balanced by making sure that the animals that are supposed to be there (i.e. the native ones) are protected, by doing conservation. For example, we should try and protect our bees because they are very important for pollinating plants. If the bees disappear, so will the plants! The number of bees in this country is falling dramatically so many conservationists (like the Bumblebee Conservation Trust http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/ ) are trying their best to protect them. I had dinner with my aunt at the weekend and she told me that she is building a bee house in her garden! Hopefully she’ll encourage more species to live there.

      The other way that we can keep ecosystems in balance is by removing the animals that shouldn’t be there – non-native species, that have been introduced by humans! There are many non native invasive species, including American crayfish, mink, zebra mussels, rhododendrons and Giant Hogweed that are spreading fast and disturbing the balance of ecosystems. Non natives may compete with or predate native species, or spread disease (for examples of what crayfish do, check out: http://www.tinyurl.com/imascientist ). Ecologists try and find ways of removing non-native species or stopping their spread. For example, in the western Isles of Scotland, people have been trapping American mink. Mink eat the eggs and chicks of native endangered birds and have a bad impact on water voles too. By removing the mink, it is hoped that these native animal populations can recover.

      Hope that answers your question!

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      This is a difficult problem as we don’t fully understand how the environment works in some cases. By trying to interfere when we don’t know enough we often cause more problems than we solve.

      The famous example is the invasion of the cane toad in Australia – they were originally introduced to try and eat a native pest but they went out of control very quickly: http://www.canetoadsinoz.com/invasion.html

Comments