Conservation

Question 1

What are conservationists?

Answer 1

• People looking for ways to manage the environment sympathetically
• Try to balance human demands on the environment with the need to maintain wildlife habitat.
• Work to slow down decline in biodiversity
• Raise public awareness to maintain species and their habitats

Question 2

Forest management

Answer 2

• Humans responsible for deforestation
• Large scale planting of trees- in areas that have been cleared (reforestation)
• Planting trees in new sites (afforestation)

Question 3

What are the reasons for planting trees?

Answer 3

• A cash crop - provides timber and fuel
• Reverses soil erosion
• Provide wildlife habitats- forest regeneration for koalas and possums

Question 4

Reasons for endangered species

Answer 4

• Pest control- killing pests that cause inconvenience to humans (hunting- kangaroos that interfere with grasslands)
• Commercial exploitation- species pf value are exploited (Koalas hunted for their fur)
• Loss of habitat- more land used for agriculture and previously unusable land has been drained (dredging of mangrove environment)

Question 5

What are some conservation strategies?

Answer 5

• Preservation- keep some part of the environment unchanged
• Reclamation- restoration of damaged habitats (recovering farmer industrial sites and miners have to restore mining sites)
• Creation- producing new habitats (planting new forests and digging ponds

Question 6

Stages of conservation

Answer 6

• Sampling to assess organisms (capture- recapture methods)
• Devising management plan- increase species population based on breeding requirements (nesting boxes for birds)
• Carrying out the plan
• Re-sampling- assess number of conserved species to see it plan has worked

Question 7

Supplementary Feeding

Answer 7

• Provide a food source that favors the native species (something not attractive to the invasive species)
• Food source that invasive species favours is removed
• Provide a species that provides a year- long supply of food specifically to the native species
• Provide food in native species prone areas

Question 8

Reintroduction

Answer 8

• Reintroduction of native species (translocation)

- Monitoring and tracking them

Question 9

Poisoning

Answer 9

• Poisoning the invasive species using warfain- baited food in an invasive species environment

Question 10

Immunosterilisation

Answer 10

• Vaccine to sterilise male and female invasive species
• Leaving the native species unaffected
• Reduces invasive species in a humane way- little effect other than sterilisation

Question 11

Habitat management

Answer 11

• Native species reserves should be surrounded by thick forest or open land to act as a buffer for invasive species

Question 12

Purpose of forest management

Answer 12

• Provide both food and shelter
• When clearing the forest some seed-producing trees should be left
• Some small nesting sites should also be left
• Seed producing areas- should be connected by corridors to prevent isolation (able to move from one area to another- prevent inbreeding)