ABSTRACT
Media coverage is increasing and there is a growing societal awareness of biodiversity loss, habitat loss and species loss. Feeding the ever growing human populations around the world is a key cause of extinction, with species of bird, mammal, fish, even insects providing meals of every imaginable kind for people around the world. Decline in species population is measured by square kilometres of the remaining component of this tree within the forest. An iconic species, which has become the motif for the World Wide Fund, is the adorable panda. In Britain, one species of butterfly, the large blue, became extinct in the UK in the late 1970s after a long period of decline, mainly as a result of habitat loss. The work of the United Nations and their Convention for Biological Diversity represents a substantial international commitment to species protection. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
