In this deck, we'll explore how human activities can damage ecosystems. We'll start with a key concept for measuring the health of an ecosystem: biodiversity. Biodiversity is simply the number of different species living in a particular area.

When humans damage or remove the natural home of organisms, this is called habitat destruction. This can happen for many reasons, including building houses, growing crops or raising livestock for food, extracting natural resources like wood or oil, and through pollution.

Habitat destruction has serious knock-on effects. When a habitat is destroyed, the organisms that live there may die or be forced to move. This disrupts food chains and complex food webs, as sources of food are removed and links in the chain are broken.