These pesticides may inadvertently contaminate a particular bug species. Birds which feed off this species may become depleted due to toxins in the bugs. With these bird species depleted, other bugs (such as species which destroy trees) may grow rapidly and decimate thousands of acres of woodland which could have been used for timber purposes. It is for unseen cases such as this one why we place such a high importance on maintaining ecological harmony. .
We, ourselves, are also protected with the use of environmental projects. This is a concept which many people have difficulty comprehending because they do not understand the delicate relationship between humans and the environment. When we protect the trees from being depleted we also improve our own air quality because forests also act as pollution sinks, which are capable of converting carbon-dioxide gas into pure oxygen. When we protect areas of tropical rainforests we also protect thousands of plants and animals that assist in the discovery of new pharmaceutical drugs which improve our bio-medical knowledge. When these values are used in calculating the importance of such environmental protection, it is undoubtedly worth the expense.
However, it has been proven in the past that many projects fail in their objectives and end up doing more harm than good. The depletion of the Newfoundland cod stocks is one such case, in which the findings of a protection project suggested that stocks were plentiful. This false information led to over fishing and the near extinction of the Atlantic cod. When projects show inaccurate results, like in this case, it places doubt in the effectiveness of environmental protection and makes politicians wonder if they should invest into more concrete areas of the government, where they can see sooner results. .
Other protection projects that have been met with much skeptism are air emissions projects where there is no accurate way of measuring results.