The correct answer is option 2. What is Habitat? • A habitat is a place where an organism makes its home. • A habitat meets all the environmental conditions an organism needs to survive. • For an animal, that means everything it needs to find and gather food, select a mate, and successfully reproduce. What is Habitat destruction? • Habitat destruction, defined as the elimination or alteration of the conditions necessary for animals and plants to survive, not only impacts individual species but the health of the global ecosystem. Explanation & Key Takeaways: What are the causes of Habitat destruction? Land use pattern (Hence, statement c is correct) • Pastoralism: this involves the management and raising of livestock including cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, etc. • Extensive agriculture: • It includes farming approaches such as ‘slash-and-burn’ or ‘shifting cultivation’ where communities clear land to grow crops, then later abandon it to move elsewhere or leave it for several years to regenerate. • Intensive agriculture: • This is continuous cultivation as that is common of farming approaches. • Urbanization: the shift from rural areas with low population density to population-dense urban centres. Forest loss and deforestation (Hence, statement a is correct) • Humanity’s destruction of nature and ecosystems is a result of very recent population growth and increasing consumption. • Clearing land for agriculture. Reclamation of Marsh (Hence, statement b is correct) • Swamps and marshes are examples of areas known as wetlands. • Wetlands are land areas of soil that are covered with water. Some wetlands form based on the season while others are permanent fixtures in a given area. • Wetlands have their own ecosystem that is unique and extremely diverse. Subsistence Farming: • It is characterised by small and scattered land holdings and the use of primitive tools. • As the farmers are poor, they do not use fertilisers and high yielding variety of seeds in their fields to the extent they should do. • Facilities like electricity and irrigation are generally not available to them. Hence, it is not caused Habitat destruction.