Question

describe overharvesting and 3 examples

Answer 1

Overharvesting means removing a renewable natural resource faster than it can naturally replenish. That can apply to animals (fishing, hunting), plants (timber, medicinal herbs), and even some renewable abiotic resources (groundwater) when use exceeds recharge. Overharvesting drives population declines, ecosystem imbalance, reduced yields, genetic erosion and sometimes extinction.

Three examples

1. Atlantic cod (Northwest Atlantic)
- What happened: Intense commercial fishing for decades reduced cod populations off Newfoundland and other Atlantic Canadian waters. Stocks collapsed in the late 1980s–early 1990s.
- Consequences: A 1992 fishing moratorium closed the fishery; many coastal communities lost livelihoods, food-webs altered, and recovery has been slow because of low spawning biomass and ecosystem changes.
- Main drivers: High fishing effort, inadequate management and late response to scientific warnings.

2. African elephants (ivory poaching)
- What happened: Heavy poaching to supply the international ivory trade has removed large numbers of elephants from many populations across Africa.
- Consequences: Severe population declines, disrupted social structure (loss of older matriarchs), increased vulnerability to other threats, and localized extinctions; intensified human–wildlife conflict and economic impacts on tourism.
- Main drivers: Demand for ivory, weak law enforcement, and organized trafficking.

3. Wild American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) and other medicinal plants
- What happened: High market demand for wild-harvested ginseng and similar herbs led to intensive collection from forests in eastern North America and elsewhere.
- Consequences: Local depletion and population declines, loss of genetic diversity, and stricter harvest regulations or trade restrictions (e.g., CITES listing for some species).
- Main drivers: High prices for wild roots, unregulated or illegal harvesting, and slow plant growth/reproductive rates.

Prevention and recovery approaches: enforce harvest limits and bans when needed, set science-based quotas, protect habitat and critical age classes, support community-based management, use certification (e.g., sustainable seafood labels), and restore depleted populations.