After doing this project on biodiversity conservation, I realized that how important is every single life on Earth, They help us to cleanse the air, water, to maintain soils quality, food chain, and stabilize climate, yet we human do not appreciate their aid. There are a lot of hunters killing them for their beautiful hides, why don’t they leave them in peace so that they won’t extinct and let the coming generation have a chance to see them too. We also destroyed their habitat which left them nowhere to live. We destroy it both directly and indirectly. First, the farmers practise shifting cultivation which means they will burn down a part of rainforest to plant and after few years later they will change location due to insufficient nature fertilizers. Secondly, we all contributed in global warming which is a crisis problem that the world facing. The northern and southern part animals are facing extinction due to melting of ice. It’s also a bombastic problem to us. The fluctuating climate causes nature disasters such as, flood; drought; erosion; tornados, etc. We can help reduce greenhouse gases by recycling water bottles or can, reduce amount of paper we use so that deforestation rate will decrease, also reuse box made out of plastic for few times. Lastly use recycle bag instead of plastic bag.

The term ‘biodiversity’ – short for ‘biological diversity’ – refers to the totality and variety of life on earth.Biodiversity exists at three levels: ecosystems, species, and genes.
a. An ecosystem is an array of living organisms and the physical and chemical environment with which they interact.
b. The species is the yardstick by which the variety of life has traditionally been measured.
c. A hereditary unit consisting of a sequence of DNA that occupies a specific location on a chromosome and determines a particular characteristic in an organism.
The increasing loss of biodiversity on this planet is an uncontested fact: Populations and species are being eliminated faster than new ones are being discovered; naturally diverse vegetation is being replaced by artificial monocultures, and we lack sufficient knowledge about the species that are being lost. What is being done about it? Is it possible to combat species loss? Is this the best way of addressing the wider problems?
Biodiversity is not just about the number of species and sites within a specific area, nor is it about the list of populations at risk from extinction. The essence of nature is not only diversity but also dynamism, and the interaction between species and habitat is of crucial importance. Biodiversity is threatened not only when species are made extinct, but also when the dynamics are disturbed. Conserving biodiversity is thus a delicate balancing act that many international and national bodies are striving to master.

Extracted from : http://www.fathom.com/course/21701791/index.html

Importance of biodiversity
a. Generation of soils and maintenance of soil quality :
The activities of microbial and animal species – including bacteria, algae, fungi, mites, millipedes and worms – condition soils, break down organic matter, and release essential nutrients to plants. These processes play a key role in the cycling of such crucial elements as nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous between the living and non-living parts of the biosphere.

b. Maintenance of air quality :
Plant species purify the air and regulate the composition of the atmosphere, recycling vital oxygen and filtering harmful particles resulting from industrial activities.

c. Maintenance of water quality :
Wetland ecosystems (swamps, marshes, etc.) absorb and recycle essential nutrients, treat sewage, and cleanse wastes. In estuaries, molluscs remove nutrients from the water, helping to prevent nutrient over-enrichment and its attendant problems, such as eutrophication arising from fertilizer run-off. Trees and forest soils purify water as it flows through forest ecosystems. In preventing soils from being washed away, forests also prevent the harmful siltation of rivers and reservoirs that may arise from erosion and landslides.

d. Pest control :
Around 99 per cent of potential crop pests are controlled by a variety of other organisms, including insects, birds and fungi. These natural pesticides are in many ways superior to their artificial equivalents, since pests can often develop resistance to chemical controls.

Extracted from : http://www.undp.org/biodiversity/biodiversitycd/bioImport.htm

Dugong
The Dugong, Dugong dugon, is one of only four extant sirenian mammals. They are unique amongst marine mammals by being almost entirely herbivorous. The Dugongs main food is seagrass, and to a much lesser extent marine algae when seagrass is scarce. Individuals are known to occasionally take marine invertebrates such as mussels and tunicates. The species is long-lived (up to 70 years), relatively slow to attain sexual maturity (greater than nine years), and the interval between the birth of calves ranges from three to seven years. The Dugong has a broad but disjunct distribution in tropical and subtropical shallow coastal waters of the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans The Dugong does not breed in NSW (New South Wales), however habitat and resources within the state remain important to visiting individuals. Prior to 1992, only 14 Dugong records were known for NSW. A further 50 individuals, many of them dead, were recorded in NSW between 1992 and 1993. This influx of Dugongs to NSW waters coincided with a catastrophic loss of 1000km2 of seagrass from Hervey Bay (Queensland) after severe floods. NSW waters act as a refuge area for Queensland's Dugongs.


Extracted from : http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/determinations/DugongEndSpListing.htm

Orangutan
The only great ape that lives on the Asian continent, the orangutan is found on the Malaysian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Its name means "man of the forest," and it is one of thousands of species of wildlife that live in tropical Asian forests. The orangutan's story is similar to that of a large number of Asian animals: its forest habitat is being rapidly destroyed by conversion to agriculture, both by large commercial plantations and smaller subsistence farms. At the same time, humans are killing the orangutan's prey species (birds and small mammals) for food and capturing it for the pet trade. There are an estimated 30,000 orangutans left in the wild, about 20,000 on Borneo and under 10,000 on Sumatra. Orangutans are the most arboreal (living in trees). It is rare for an adult orangutan to ever touch the ground. Their strong hands, hand-like feet, and long arms (with a span of up to 8 feet) are supremely adapted to life in the trees. They do not even have to come to the ground to drink -- they drink the water that collects in tree holes. Orangutans are omnivorous; they eat both plants and animals. They eat fruit, leaves, nuts, shoots, insects, and, when they can catch them, young birds and small mammals. By about the age of ten, an orangutan will have learned to identify over 200 different food plants. Orangutans spend most of their lives alone. The males are very territorial, and each male's territory overlaps those of several females. Because orangutans do not tolerate each other very well, they need large areas of forest to survive. Crowding causes them to fight among themselves, possibly over the limited supply of fruit.

Extracted from : http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_orang.htm

Leopard cats
The most common wild cat of southern Asia, leopard cats are small spotted cats about the size of a domestic cat, but rather long in the legs. Leopard cats inhabit forests and jungles in both low country and in hilly, even mountainous areas up to 3,000 meters, as well as scrub, semi desert, secondary vegetation and agricultural areas. In northeastern Asia they are often found in pine forests, favoring the more open stretches with plenty of fallen trunks. They have been found in 21 Asian countries, from Sumatra to Manchuria, with the smallest subspecies living in the jungles of the Philippines. The largest subspecies are found in the northern regions. They are also known as bengal cats or amur cats. Active at night, dawn and dusk, they hunt both on the ground and in the trees. Like most wild cats, they swim very well. Showing little aversion to human presence, leopard cats can frequently be found close to villages, and have been kept as rodent control agents by villagers, much like Geoffrey’s cat Oncifelis geoffroyi of South America. Most of their hunting is done at night, but they can be found in twilight, preying on rodents and other small mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians and insects.


Extracted from : http://www.wildcatconservation.org/Leopard_Cat_(Prionailurus_bengalensis).html

13th Feb 2009,
We had our cross country at Nanyang Polytechnic.
It started from 2pm and end about 6pm.
I went to there about 12.30pm to meet my friends.
They were late and I ended up waiting for them for about half an hour.

Finally, they come.
We walked to Nanyang polytechnic which was near YioChukang Mrt Station.
At first i can't find the exact place, but i spotted some schoolmates so i followed them.
They were at amphitheater there.
The uniform groups member demonstrate for us some skills for emergency uses.

After that, we headed to the stadium for our cross country run.
The upper sec girls first followed by lower sec girl and lower sec boys followed by upper sec boys.
The race finished around 4.45pm, I get rank 18th for the lower sec boys,
there're around 50 plus boys competing and the rest just run for fun.

At first i aimed for top 15 but it's fine,
at least i tried my best.
I'll do better for the next following cross country.