Biodiversity is also an important ecosystem service that supplies life support to human
civilisations3,4. For example, the native grasslands, mulga woodlands and chenopod country
of the rangelands are an important source of marketable goods for animals products such as
meat, wool and leather. The native trees produce wood products for fence posts, home
building, paper and furniture. Spinnifex grass, bark, soils and dead wood provide landscaping
products. The native plants provide food products such as honey, native herbs and fruits,
fibre and medicines. Biodiversity is also central to some of our recreational pursuits such as
nature watching and photography, gardening, ecotouring and hunting (e.g. fishing).
However, over time humans gradually homogenise natural ecosystems by modifying
them from diverse communities into species-poor managed systems which causes not only a
loss of biodiversity but also an increase in species favoured by human activities5
. This pattern is also apparent for the dry rangelands as mentioned in the section on Australia's rangelands.
Recent empirical studies in the Northern Hemisphere including those on grasslands have
shown that insidious local extinctions of living organisms can alter ecosystem functioning
substantially at local scales which over time may lead to global extinctions and a loss of
ecosystem sustainability6