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250 R White ‘invading’ or occupying the same terrain (see chapter Violent Love: Conservation and Invasive Alien Species herein) As demonstrated in this chapter, animal abuse resulting from wildlife habitat destruction is not solely about human action It also encompasses human inaction as well, including the decision to ‘do nothing’ For the purposes of illustration, the chapter initially focuses on de-forestation and its impacts on nonhuman animals, before briefly considering pollution-related harms Later, the chapter turns to matters of habitat change due to competing nonhuman species, and the choices foisted upon humans regarding suitable intervention strategies In the first two instances, wildlife habitat is literally destroyed, to be replaced by new forms of vegetation and/ or mining operations In the latter, wildlife habitat is transformed or denuded, not by human action per se, but by the migration and (re)settlement of non-endemic species in new territories and/or population explosion of particular species relative to others The chapter thus considers the nature, prevalence, explanations and responses to habitat loss from the point of view of harms to nonhuman animals, and does so by highlighting the specific role of human agency in regards to these issues Biodiversity, Deforestation and Habitat Loss The loss of biodiversity in all three of its main components—genes, species and ecosystems—continues at a rapid pace today and the principal pressures directly driving biodiversity loss (habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change) are either constant or increasing in intensity (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010) Biodiversity is generally defined as the variety of all species on earth It refers to the different plants, animals and micro-organisms, and their genes, that together make up life on the planet It also includes reference to the terrestrial (land), marine (ocean) and freshwater (inland water systems) ecosystems of which they are a part With biodiversity, the key ecological message is the greater the number of species the greater the resilience of the system as a whole to potential catastrophe, whether this is fire, drought or climate change Any particular ecosystem is made up of both abiotic components (air, water, soils, atoms and molecules) and biotic components (plants, animals, bacteria and fungi) Changes to an ecosystem through human intervention may occur through manipulation, contamination or destruction of these components (for example, through mining or land clearance or use of pesticides), although it is not