All of the Earth's ecosystems create the very life zone of the Earth or the biosphere, and all of the Earth's biological diversity or native plants and animals create, sustain and maintain the Earth's ecosystems, in the eco-nomics of life. Science has compared the extinctions of biological diversity a threat to man and civilization, almost as dangerous as thermonuclear war.

An ecosystem is only as stable or life giving as the richness of its biological diversity. When we discuss biological diversity and their jobs and roles in ecosystems, we are talking oxygen releasing, the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, moderation of the climate, sequesteration of heat trapping gases, the creation and renewal of soil, decomposition, the nitrogen cycle and the hydrological storage and flux, the purification of the air and water...

seed dispersal, pollination, mitigation of floods and soil erosion, circulation of vital nutrients, 75% of all new medicines, 99% of all pest control and the trimming and checking of disease pathogens in the food chain with man that cause global, disease pandemics.

"The main causes, including habitat and climate change, over exploitation and pollution, are constant or increasing in their intensity."

Aberrant human behaviors are actually the source of all these problems, but we can go still farther upstream to problems in consciousness and their relationship to ideology. An unexamined insistence on infinite economic growth and consumption within a finite ecology is the upstream pathology. We can also implicate a broader ecological illiteracy among those in power.