Language of Ecological Degradation

I was reviewing some CNU materials and found a piece titled “Sprawl Wrecks the Landscape”. This may be a benign choice of words in most respects. However I was struck that we often are concerned with the aesthetic blight that accompanies development; but we are really not in touch with the affects on plant and animal life. If we see trees, rolling hills or wetland prairies being destroyed we may have little comprehension of the loss of habitat and beneficial species that keep biomass recycled, etc.   If this is true, what do we do about it?