About Lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body, including the skin, joints, heart, lungs, blood, kidneys, and brain.Normally, the body's immune system makes proteins called antibodies to protect the body against viruses, bacteria, and other foreign materials.bout Lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body, including the skin, joints, heart, lungs, blood, kidneys, and brain.
The source document for this Digest states: Biodiversity change is caused by a range of drivers. A driver is any natural or human-induced factor that directly or indirectly causes a change in an ecosystem. A direct driver unequivocally influences ecosystem processes. An indirect driver operates more diffusely, by altering one or more direct drivers. Important direct drivers affecting biodiversity are habitat change, climate change, invasive species, overexploitation, and pollution (CF4, C3, C4.3, S7). No single measure or indicator represents the totality of the various drivers.
Forest degradation and loss from the spontaneous expansion of people's activities into forest lands is notoriously difficult to quantify. Shifting agriculture is the primary cause of deforestation, accounting for about 45 per cent of the 7.5 million ha losses in tropical forests in 1976-1980. In 1980 it accounted for 35 per cent of deforestation in Latin America, 70 per cent in Africa, and 49 per cent in South-East Asia (notably Sri Lanka, Thailand, north-east India, Laos, Malaysia, and the Philippines) (Tolba et al., 1992).