Beginning of Essay
The collective action of humans - developing and paving over the landscape, clear-cutting forests, polluting rivers and streams, altering the atmosphere's protective ozone layer, and populating nearly every place imaginable - are bringing an end to the lives of cr ....

Middle of Essay
.... to possess the technological ability to cause wholesale extermination of species, genera or even entire families of living creatures. This process is accelerating. Wildlife management efforts initiated during this century have been unsuccessful in stemming the tide. Most public attention given to endangered species has focused on mammals, birds, and a few varieties of trees. Ecologists recognize a far greater threat to the much larger number of species of reptiles, fish, invertebrates, and plants that are being wiped out by human activity. In the past few decades, vast areas in several regions of the world have been cleared to make room for urban ....