The Effects of Habitat Fragmentation in Pennsylvania

https://www.swarthmore.edu/environmental-studies-capstone/habitat-destruction-and-fragmentation

The article linked above discusses the problem of habitat fragmentation in Pennsylvania. For those of you who do not know what habitat fragmentation is, I will explain. Habitat fragmentation is when an intact forest ecosystem is split up by human interference, such as agriculture, the building of roads, houses, or in the case of this article, by natural gas fracking in Pennsylvania State Forests.

Habitat fragmentation is a problem because it negatively impacts the biodiversity of the flora and fauna of a given area and creates a lot of disturbance on sites. The article explains that creating pads to drill for natural gas disturbs a significant amount of ground and is detrimental to the fragmentation problem. While this is totally true, I believe we need to look beyond just natural gas fracking as the problem, and try to develop more sustainably as a whole.

I am from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a rapidly developing area in Southeast PA. I see habitat fragmentation occurring far too frequently, not to natural gas fracking, but to parking lots, Wal-Marts, housing developments, and shopping malls. I think we need to pay more attention to how and where we build these types of structures so we create as little disturbance as possible.

This may not seem like a big deal to people who do not fully understand habitat conservation, but the effects of fragmentation are everywhere and they are no joke. Sensitive species are becoming endangered or extinct. Invasive species are taking over disturbed areas. Whether it be natural gas fracking, or shopping mall construction we need to be more aware of our impacts on the environment we live in and develop accordingly

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