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Biodiversity: Life, variety, the world - the variety of life in the whole entire world

As a Geography student I have done extensive reading on the detrimental effects human activity is having on the planet (although I can’t claim to have ever read a full reading list…). I read and I read and I read but I am afraid that thus far my motivation for reading has been all wrong. There’s no right way of saying this, it’s going to sound bad and immoral and it is: I read these papers because I want to do alright in my essays, not because I have a deep, embedded need to save the planet. It’s time for change. The planet is changing (I know that much) and now I am too. In the foreseeable future I’m going to blog about biodiversity. I’m not going to preach environmentalism because I am not qualified (I’m yet to discover my inner activist). Instead I’m going to explore the issue of biodiversity loss at a different level to what I have been used to. I’m going to try and see beneath the political and corporate agendas of many environmental discourses and empathise with the real issue at hand.

I’ve read somewhere that:

-     ‘Human activities have caused and will continue to cause a loss in biodiversity…’ (IPCC, 2002);

-  ‘The monetary value of goods and services provided by ecosystems is estimated to amount to US$33 trillion per year.’ (IUCN, 2004) and that;

-  The WWF ‘promises’ that ‘by 2050, the integrity of the most outstanding natural places on earth is conserved, contributing to a more secure and sustainable future for all.' (WWF, 2008)

   

However what I want to know is:
-       How exactly are humans causing loss of biodiversity;
-       What are the consequences of reduced biodiversity and;
-       How can biodiversity be protected.
 
I’m also curious:
-       Whether all loss is bad loss and;
-       Why native species get conservation priority over invasive species.
 
So, best case scenario: I will shed a tear (cue polar bear pictures) but I’ll keep you posted.
 
IPCC (2002), ‘Climate Change and Biodiversity’, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
IUCN (2004) ‘Assessing the Economic Value of Ecosystem Conservation’, The World Bank Environment Department.
WWF, ‘What’s WWF doing about this growing loss of biodiversity’, 2008, (http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/biodiversity/wwf_and_biodiversity/) [accessed 9.10.2013].