Question

Can I have a description of FIVE different historical events that have caused the depletion of natural resources?

Answer 1

Hope these help out!

- The Four Pests Campaign (China, 1958 - 62)
Mao Zedong, during his "Great Leap Forward" initiative for China, made this a part of eliminating what he felt were four major pests which included sparrows. The bad news was that sparrows also ate bugs such as locusts which they discovered later, but not before the damage was already done. By wiping out so many sparrows on a national scale, insects like locusts were allowed to thrive and wipe out crops depleting what food was available and causing a major famine.

- Migration West in the late 1800s (USA)
As railroads wound their way west across the Great Plains after the Civil War and as new settlers rushed to stake their claims, the roads and rails disrupted the natural grazing fields for many animals - such as the American Bison, or the buffalo. They were nearly wiped out by the end of the 1800s as so many were being killed only for their skin. Railroad companies would hire on bands on hunters to clear the way by slaughtering entire herds on an almost daily basis.

Picture for perspective, giant hill of bison skulls:
http://rvtravel.com/blog/chuck/uploaded_images/Bison_skull_pile,_ca1870-772015.png

- Thirty Years' War (Europe, first half of the 17th century)
Soldiers need food and provisions, and back then, huge armies of them had to get all of that from wherever they occupied leaving a lot of the common folk without any for themselves. Now do that for thirty years. Famines were commonplace as roving armies often uprooted crops and goods for their own use, depleting whatever food was available over the course of what is considered the longest war on record.

- Rise of the Roman Empire
As the Roman Empire sated its thirst for blood in arenas, it needed to fill them with a continuing stream of animals from the lands it held. Whole species would become extinct as they died in arenas like the Colosseum, and as the empire expanded, so did the selection of what it could throw into them.

For more reading on this example, you can check this out:
http://www.endangeredspecieshandbook.org/persecution_roman.php

- Vietnam War
Agent Orange was the name of a chemical defoliant used by the US to destroy enemy crops and the forest cover North Vietnamese guerilla fighters used. It also turns out that it was extremely toxic and became responsible for a wide array of crippling defects among the Vietnamese and even American soldiers who were exposed to it. So much of it was used that even now, it still shows up in the soil and the food chain within the affected areas, depriving their use by the Vietnamese for farming as well as upsetting the local ecology more than forty years later.

Answer 2

Thank you so much!

Answer 3

woah mad props @Captain_Page_Turner.