As a young citizen working…

As a young citizen working in environmental conservation, I see the benefits of protecting biodiversity on a daily basis. Healthy ecosystems maintain a balance that recycles nutrients, purifies water, regulate climate, maintain healthy soils, and provide us with food, raw materials and countless of recreational activities. When species are removed from the equation, the ecosystem becomes unbalanced, creating problems such as pests. For example, White Tail Deer populations are out of control in southern Ontario due to lack of predators that have been extirpated from the land due to human development and lack of sufficient habitat. As a result, we now see more auto collisions from coming in contact with deer and introduction of new diseases. Many grassland birds are at risk of extinction; these birds feed on insects that have harmful effects on crops. With these birds present in farmer's field, the pest can be controlled naturally reducing cost and labour to the farmer, while increasing yield.
Removing protection from species at risk, will mean that more wetlands will be developed. This will create bigger flooding issues as wetlands act as a water reservoir that allow water to slowly drain to rivers and lakes, while purifying it in the process. No wetlands will result in more flash floods; higher costs in infrastructure repairs for roads, homes and other buildings that will suffer; more soil erosion along river banks as a result of increased flow, among other things.
Overall, ecosystems have highly complexed relationships that no human understand and messing with those relationships will always result in negative effects for people. The government needs to listen to industry professionals who know more on the topic than any politician. We need to start living with nature and not against it, because we will always lose that battle.