BIODIVERSITY

    When the lose of the biodiversity is talked about, soon comes to the mind the forestall forms, where life swarms more abundantly, but the lose of life’s diversity is not astringed only to the complexes ecosystems as the tropical forests, for example, but also occur in other ecosystems, less complexes as the semi-arid areas, and also in the cities.
    Normally the animal and vegetal species obey to a life’s cycle composed by emerging, climax and extinction, what spends million years for occurring. However, human-being, in spite of being “new in the Earth” in geological terms, have been significantly changing the ecological balance, interrupting this way the natural cycle of the species, destructing ecosystems and its species. The conclusion about the big perturbation’s extension of human activity in the ecosystem as destruction factor seen to be pacific point among scientists and environmentalists.
    At urban areas, or in other words, those where are people agglomeration and human activities’ concentrations, forming towns or cities, the effects of environment’s degradation are too big and, obviously, the impact in life’s diversity is also big.
    Among the innumerous factors that collaborate to the lose of biodiversity in urban centers, we can mainly detail: the out of control soil’s use for edification; the lack of planning to the place’s local characteristics; the damage caused to atmosphere and water by cars and industries toxic residues; the introduction of predator animals in the local fauna, that decimates, for example, the dogs and cats introduction; the damage caused by animal diseases problems related to the introduction of exotic species; the destruction of micro-ecosystems as marshes, natural ponds that interfere in the hydric system and in the draining, as it destroys fauna and flora; the lack of environmental conscious etc.
    All over the world, urban centers are being densified increasingly, being calculated that at the end of the century more than 70% of the world’s population will be living in the cities and more than a dozen of them will have more than 10 million inhabitants. This is making that its reflexes increase proportionally to the population increasing, reaching local biodiversity and around, by reflex, because a city as an ecosystem that it is, needs out energy for feeding itself and its impact can be seen in distant natural ecosystems as for example, forests and lakes that receive its pollution or are resources suppliers, degrading it.
 In this way is interesting to take note of Denis D. Murphy’s information, that in Great Britain, where the continuos aggression of centuries have already extinguished vertebrate species, now is extinguishing the invertebrates (“Desafios à Diversidade Biológica em Áreas Urbanas, in Biodiversidade, E.O. Wilson (org.), Ed. Nova Fronteira”. 1997, p. 89).
    Therefore, we can see that the urban areas are problematic in environmental terms and responsible for a lot of species’ extinction, just being maintained little that were adapted to its demands, being each time poorer in life’s quality, what is regrettable.
    Knowing that, Public Power and collectivity must be careful and do something for minimizing the problem, and if not, we can live in an environment increasingly inhospitable and aggressive to life’s diversity, in which we are included.