Habitat Loss Havoc, by Madeleine & Ibrahim

August 15, 2020

Edwin Van Landsmeer and his family have just taken action yesterday- August 14, 2020- on an idea to help solve a worldwide issue. If they succeed, they hope to start a movement and inspire others to follow in their footsteps. They are now building a treehouse made of artificial wood with no help from machinery whatsoever in the countryside of east Holland, near the small border town of Winterswijk. Once they finish, they hope to rent their home and "live off the land" (including going vegetarian and refusing to chop down trees for lumber) for a decent amount of time until they have raised awareness about their worries on this issue.

What issue? As our world is flying through the twenty-first century, we are now busier than ever. More trees are being harvested. We're fracking for oil more and more. More land is being cleared for monocropping farms and apartments. We're polluting the air and ground more than ever, causing tons of Global Warming. We're building more and more dams for energy, blocking certain nutrients out of rivers and oceans. Our population is multiplying like bacteria -- and lots more animals are going extinct thanks to all of the topics above. The explanation? A horrible cause that's all thanks to humankind -- Habitat Loss. We might be unaware we're the ones to blame. But it's true -- and in fact, it's speculated that three species go extinct every hour and a likely reason is, you guessed it, humans destroying their habitats. The loss of any certain animals could throw off the whole balance of our life. If we lost bees, half the fruits and veggies we have now wouldn't exist. If fish died out, who knows how many other species of ocean life would have to pay the price. Even if the tiniest little form of bacteria went extinct, there would be unpredictable consequences.

A huge loss of animal habitats comes from deforestation. People are clearing out trees that could have a squirrel's den or a bird's nest hidden in the eaves, and we are shredding them into wood bark dust or slicing them until they're wooden boards. The poor squirrel who had a home in those trees where he had just hidden all his acorns for winter, or the bird who had a nest in that tree and had been storing all her food to get ready for migration in, come back and think, "Hey! Where'd my tree go? All that's left is a stump!" Having no home isn't the worst of it, though.

First, we just took an animal's home and, if it's close to winter time, probably all their food. Second, it most likely wasn't just that animal's house -- it was that one animal's safe haven, another animal's scratching post, a different one's grocery store. Now all three of them, without the tree they've been relying on for years, have to go search for a different place to live, a different scratching post, and different food supply. And, in the case of the animal that stored his food in the tree and the case of the one who used it for food, they are going to be hungry until they find a tree they can use. This is extremely bad, especially if it's in the winter time -- in which case, the animals just lost their source of food for the whole winter, and they don't have time to scavenge for more. Finally, it's bad because, knowing us as human beings, we probably won't use at least half the tree. We'll cut off the loose limbs and shave the tree into planks to make industrial goods -- most of which will break and/or go to waste in a matter of days. This is a problem because one of those loose limbs could have housed a bird's nest, and didn't even get used. I mean, would you like it if a Gray Squirrel came along in a bulldozer and destroyed your house, only to take the pillow off a couch to use it as a bed? I don't think so.

This deforestation is what Edwin is trying to stop. While Edwin is more concerned about the trees, his brother, Hans, gets giddy when he goes too high, and has always been more concerned with ground animals. Because of this, he is now living in a house that can only be described as a strikingly close resemblance to a "hobbit hole" from the 2013 release of The Hobbit, which also gives him a good viewing spot for ground animals, in a hill not far from the base of the giant tree in which Edwin is currently constructing his home. They plan to be finished with the building phase of their movement sometime around 2025, five years from now, and then they plan to visit their home town of Rotterdam in 2040 and promote the idea to the public. When asked why they chose to live in such establishments, they say, "We realized that animal habitat loss is a big problem in the world, so we now live in a house that has little to no effect on animal habitats whatsoever." When we interviewed Edwin's wife, Ida, she said, "Living in a tree is very different from life back in Rotterdam, but I am enjoying the adventure." When asked, Edwin's daughter, Greta, said, "Most children dream of living in the trees, not unlike myself and my brother Phillip. We are living in our dreams while helping to save animals around the world, and it is an opportunity few get."

Edwin, Hans, and their families are hoping to set an example for other people around the world by going green and saving animals, and saving trees by living in them, rendering them unusable to lumber companies. They are hoping lots of people will notice and catch on to their idea and help make it a worldwide phenomenon. Already some large humane associations are taking notice and promoting the idea. Hans's eldest son, Nicolaas, is in college where he will reveal his fathers' and uncles' idea to his professors. Yesterday, we tracked down Edwin and Hans's father in downtown Rotterdam, and he admitted that he is very proud of his sons and hopes his grandchildren learn to be like them when they grow up. At the end of the interview, Edwin stated, "I hope other people around the world will see this and follow the path to saving animal habitat."

We don't have to follow Edwin. We can even do small things, like chop down less wood and use artificial wood. We can use less energy (like biking to work) to help prevent the ice caps from melting away. We can even do small things like support wildlife protection organizations, build bat-boxes, and put up more bird feeders. And though habitat loss is mainly humankind's fault, some of it still comes from natural occurrences such as Tsunamis, Forest Fires, Lightning, Blizzards, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and others. So some habitat loss is uncontrollable. But what is our fault, we should fix. Even now, in 2020, it's not too late to change paths.