The main culprit is overpopulation, and mankind's insatiable demand for more and more resources -- for example more logs and more palm oil.

Until there are fewer of us, there will inevitably have to be fewer of almost everything else in our biosphere, including orangatangs.  That's just the way things work on a finite planet with finite space and finite solar energy input.

Yeah, yeah, I know: if we just reduced our consumption.  But, #1, I don't generally see people voluntarily reducing their consumption, either in the USA or in China or in India.  I only see them reducing consumption when they HAVE to, due to the expense ($5.00/gal gasoline may finally kill the Hummer) or the lack of more resources (no more shark fin soup for you once we kill the last shark!)

And #2, eventually, of course, we will all HAVE to reduce our per-capita consumption or Mother Nature will reduce our capita (population) for us; this is a non-negotiable reality when you live on a finite planet.  

The question is whether we will voluntarily do so before Mother Nature forces our hand.  The signs so far are not promising.  My point is that even if you can convince everyone on the planet to reduce their consumption by 50% (no small feat!), all your gains are for naught if the global population increases by the same amount.  As, in fact, it is forecast to do from the year 2000 (about 6 billion) to 2050 (about 9 billion).

I just find this basic fact ignored in most discussions here on Grist.  News flash: all the Berkeley yuppies in the world putting compact fluorescent bulbs in their lamps won't get us very far, as long as we're still adding 150,000 humans (Eugene, Oregon's population!) each day.

http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/wildlife_con ....

The danger to the red knots, focused on exploitation of horseshoe crab populations in the Delaware Bay vicinity, does not seem to have anything to do with global warming.  But why should that matter?  Why should the plight of orangutans, with its global-warming connexion, matter more to environmentalists who read Grist, than the plight of red knots, and of horseshoe crabs?

Why is the biodiversity crisis consistently a subject of minor interest in Grist?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

There's no point in obsessing on either overpopulation or overconsumption.  They are the twin physical roots of all environmental and ecological problems, and without fixing both problems, our ecological problems will not be solved.