.....what?

Humans have been adapting their environment to suit their needs for as long as there's been organized human settlements. Asking someone to give a presentation on the history of it is like asking an astronomer to give the history of the universe in 30 minutes.

A really easy subject to focus on would actually be the Pacific Northwest. You could compare accounts from early French Explorers and the Lewis and Clark Expedition against US government policy in the 1800's and 1900's. Systematic construction of hydroelectric dams along the Columbia and it's tributaries, and logging policy in Oregon and Washington brought a number of native species to the brink of extinction, including salmon and I think it was the Snowy Barn Owl?

Pretty much any time humans establish even the crudest of settlements, farm, domesticate animals, build cities, dig sewers, clear forests, burn jungles, or even do something like fly aircraft they're destroying habitats and displacing wildlife. When Portland constructed the airport- PDX- they did so at the expense of wetlands that geese and other wildlife used. Hydroelectric dams eviscerated salmon populations that are only just now starting to recover. Oregon's primary industry for much of the 19th and early 20th century was logging, which was done at the expense of a number of birds. Up till the 70's and 80's Portland basically treated the Willamette as a sewer for whatever industrial waste was being produced. To this day swimming in the Willamette is something native Portlanders joke about, though some brave souls do it anyways.

But I'm just giving local examples. What exactly is the scope of your presentation?