Biodiversity is important in maintaining global geopolitical stability, a term sometimes referred to as "ecosecurity." Environmental degradation in the poorer countries often leads, on a daily basis, to shortages of fuelwood, food, fiber and other diverse ecosystem products. These shortages, exacerbated by population pressures, economic and social crises, create a downward spiral that can be difficult to break.
If not dealt with in the near-term, these small, degradation-based crises can coalesce into national and regional conflicts. In the Western Hemisphere, Haiti and El Salvador are examples of densely populated countries with badly degraded environments that have already entered into vicious cycles of political and economic instability. Breaking them will not be easy, with or without democracy, which has a tenuous hold at best in nations with such a range of problems.
The lack of options at home has driven a good portion of the population of these two countries to seek refuge elsewhere, generating another series of geopolitical stresses. Whatever political solutions may be devised, countries like these will not be viable over the long term without major restoration of their natural resource base.
Frequently, the economic value of biodiversity is associated with international exports. Examples include timber from forest ecosystems and other common products such as rubber, Brazil nuts, rattan, and animal products such as fish and meat, which are regularly shipped across international borders.
Yet the vast majority of biodiversity is used within the borders of a particular nation, close to the habitat of origin, where it also derives significant economic value. Everyone depends on biodiversity in its endless manifestations, and this dependence is most evident in the developing countries of the tropics. The in-country uses can be divided into three categories: regional market, local market and household use.
The first category includes products that enter into the national or regional economy and may change hands several times, such as fish or fibers for clothing, increasing in value as they go along. Local market products are sold or marketed in a much more circumscribed area. Examples include medicinal plants or agricultural products from a small Amazonian town that are taken to other nearby villages.
Products that have more immediate household use value are those that are obtained from a given ecosystem and are used by the individual, family or indigenous group that collects or produces them. An example is game meat eaten by a hunter and his family, thatch for a house or a piece of bark used to brew a tea for headaches.
By: Russell A. Mittermeier and Ian A. Bowles, from: Choices (The Human Development Magazine), December 1993. From the United Nations Development Program.
