Popis: |
Humans are key players for the current unprecedented rate of biodiversity loss across the globe with climate change, pollution and the loss, fragmentation, and degradation of habitat (VITOUSEK et al 1997). According to convention on biological diversity (C B D) in 2019, defines biodiversity as “the variety of life on earth, including plants, animals and microorganisms, as well as the ecosystem of which they are part. Biodiversity includes genetic differences within species, the diversity of species and the variety of ecosystem. The development and presence of roads infrastructures is the major indicator of economic growth. Research has shown that several important indicators of economy like trade, electricity, communication, health are positive correlated with the road infrastructure. Therefore any government of a country considers it important to invest in road infrastructure for feature prospect of the country with the best possible ways. However, consequences of road construction cannot be neglected. Roads construction for mobility and accessibility of people inevitably transforms natural habitat in to a sealed and highly disturbed environment which always implies net loss of wild life habitat. The physical encroachment on the land, gives rise to disturbance and barrier effects that contribute to the overall habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation in Sierra Leone. Humans are changing the original structure of ecological communities by roads infrastructure which increases the death rate of species. This modification in earth ecological communities causes a compelling concern for ecosystem diversity loss Sierra Leone, like most developing countries trying to construct roads for mobility and accessibility. Road construction projects undertaken by government or NGOs in Sierra Leone can reduce landscape permeability. Therefore the fundamental changes in landscape structure have both direct and indirect impacts on the conservation of species and biodiversity. The direct loss refers to the reduction of the total area of an ecosystem caused by the presence of roads and its verges, i.e. by the conversion of the original land cover into artificial surfaces. The indirect loss refers to the effects such as the fragmentation (portioning of an ecosystem in to smaller and more isolated patches), and the degradation of ecosystem induce by noise, air, water pollution, artificial light. These effects cause and indirect loss of habitat in that, they reduce the capacity of and ecosystem to sustain its original biodiversity. It is explicit that, in Sierra Leone, most of the species are endangered as a result of road constructions the use of bulldozers and other machines in the operation to level the land, clear trees, and flatten the ground will destroy and displace many living organisms from their natural habitat and change their entire ways of living. The process will unable organism to adapt to drastic changes in their natural habitat. |