An argumentative essay on why we should conserve our environment and what good it could bring us

Why should we conserve plants and animals?

I am arguing for conserving plants and animals. I will discuss how plants and animals have an impact on our lives and how this would be dramatically changed if they weren't conserved.

The word "conserve" means preservation, especially of the natural environment. In plants and animals case, it means,

To keep in existence, to retain and to keep safe from harm or loss.1

Thousands of plant and animal species are being terminated every year due to many factors such as: removal of habitat, food reduction, human threats etc. From the 1700's to the year 2000, the number of species that have become extinct each year has soared from only 1 to 50,000. For example, the Mauritius dodo was extinct by 1690, Stellar's sea cow by 1768 and the Great Auk by 1844. In 1990, there was only one of the Abingdon tortoises left in the world, and in 1952, the Balinese tiger became extinct.

English: Panthera tigris sumatran subspecies. Fran...

Balinese Tiger shot by Hungarian baron Oskar Vojni...

Caspian Tiger (Panthera tigris virgata), a.k.a. Pe...

As the graph provided in the appendix 1 shows, the number of species becoming extinct as the years go on has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. By the year 2025 the Earth could lose as many as one fifth of all species known to exist today. In recent centuries, hundreds of species have disappeared, almost always as a result of human activities. The passenger pigeon, one familiar example, was a source of food until excessive hunting and habitat loss caused its extinction in 1914. The North American bison, whose populations were decimated by settlers and market hunters in the 1800s, came close to sharing the same fate. Bison survive today only because of the efforts of early conservationists.

Food chains also play a part in the web of life.

Food-chain, a series of organisms each dependant on...