Every acre people use for housing, farming, or roads is an acre other species cannot use. Colcom Foundation builds part of its environmental philosophy on this basic observation.

The foundation explains that human activity affects the environment primarily by appropriating natural resources for human purposes. Once taken, those resources become unavailable to wildlife and plants. The list extends past physical space to include water, soil nutrients, caloric resources, and the capacity to absorb waste. Even the ability of air, water, and soil to absorb pollution is a shared resource that people can use up.

Value Beyond Usefulness

Colcom Foundation holds that ecosystems and other species have intrinsic value, regardless of what they provide to people. That view sits alongside a practical one. Healthy ecosystems also deliver clean water, food production, and climate regulation that human communities depend on.

Both perspectives inform the foundation’s conservation goals, which include species preservation, habitat protection, and endangered species protection.

Evidence of Decline

Scientific research suggests the pressure on other species has grown severe. Bradshaw et al. (2021), in Frontiers in Conservation Science, found that current human numbers and consumption rates are driving a sixth mass extinction. Vertebrate population losses, the authors reported, have accelerated since the 1970s.

The 2019 IPBES Global Assessment estimated that approximately 1 million plant and animal species face extinction. It also found that three quarters of land environments have been markedly altered by human activity.

Researchers have connected these losses to population. Crist et al. (2022) described the scale and pace of human population growth as fundamental contributors to biodiversity collapse. Cafaro et al. (2022) concluded that smaller human populations are necessary to preserve remaining biodiversity.

For Colcom Foundation, the response involves both restraint and protection. Colcom Foundation supports limiting population growth while funding land acquisition, critical habitat protection, and ecosystem restoration. Its stated aim is a sustainable environment that ensures quality of life for all Americans. Protected habitat gives other species space that human expansion would otherwise claim. Refer to this article for more information.

Find more information about Colcom Foundation on https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/311479839