Create habitat for wildlife

Wildlife need homes, they need places to live.  Some animals need a surprising amount of land in which to roam. One of the biggest problems wildlife face is that of vanishing habitat.  

What does wildlife habitat mean or refer to?

Wildlife habitat refers to the natural home of an animal or plant.  It’s the place in which they are normally found. 

The problem is that a lot of wildlife habitat is rapidly disappearing, thanks to human activity.

In many cases, wildlife habitat has been taken over by people, who’ve built homes, all the infrastructure that goes with them – roads, schools, hospitals – and leisure facilities – marinas, airports, hotels, gyms, shopping malls etc etc.

Much wildlife habitat is being destroyed to make way for agricultural land and cattle ranching.  Rainforest is being burnt down or cut down at a rapid rate to give us palm oil, an ingredient which is present in far more products than you & I can imagine.  (Next time you tuck into a bar of chocolate, ask yourself:  does it contain palm oil?  If it does, is it sustainable palm oil?)

The seas are no better, with plastic swimming about in our oceans, the pollution in our rivers and seas, the noise we create from defence, cruising and boating activities.  Our melting ice caps are leading to rising waters.  

What will happen to our wildlife?

Many wildlife habitats have become fragmented, broken up into bits.   This means that one bit piece of wildlife habitat – say a forest – has been split up, divided by people for their own convenience. This means that wildlife can’t reach other wildlife.   The result can be inbreeding which does the species no good at all.

Give wildlife the right conditions and they will thrive.  But they need the right habitat to survive and thrive.

We need to connect wildlife habitats in such a way that wildlife can travel freely and safely.   From the hedgehog needing holes in people’s garden fences to tigers roaming the Nepal mountain ranges, animals need space to roam and be safe.

There’s a very interesting project called the Half Earth Project.  Edward O.Wilson estimates that half the planet needs to be put aside for nature, in order for the natural world and wildlife to do well.

Our own apathy and inaction will certainly kill wildlife off.  But there’s lots of good things happening too.  

There is something that each of us can do to help create this habitat.  Our help can come in many forms and I hope this website will give you some ideas.   What matters is that we something to help wildlife.   Every action counts.