Our planet faces an array of environmental problems, from air and water pollution, hazardous waste disposal and soil erosion to global climate change and ozone layer depletion. These are coupled with explosive human population growth in the tropics and excessive resource consumption in the developed countries. One issue, however, surpasses all others in terms of long-term global impact: the loss of our planet's biological diversity.

Simply stated, biodiversity is life on earth, comprising the ecosystems, ecological processes and the wealth of species that inhabit our planet. It is our living natural resource base and our biological capital in the global bank. Without it we could not endure as a species.

Biodiversity loss is an irreversible process. We can develop technological fixes for most other environmental ills, often lacking only the political will or economic incentive to do so. But once a plant or animal species becomes extinct, it is gone forever. We now face a series of potential, and possibly already ongoing, extinction spasms unlike anything since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Much of this loss has been caused by people, by the conversion of tropical forests into agricultural lands, over-fishing, pollution and the effects of unsustainable levels of mining and timber production. The net result is that we are now at risk of losing not only single species or communities of species, but entire ecosystems. Ironically, we face this risk at a time when we are just starting to harness and realize the immense power of biodiversity.

Over the last five years we have seen international attention and concern grow, culminating at the 1992 Earth Summit with the completion of Agenda 21 and a major international Convention on Biological Diversity signed by 165 nations. Many donor governments are now moving to incorporate biodiversity conservation into their individual foreign assistance programs and are supporting the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the multilateral fund managed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the World Bank with technical support from the UN Environment Program (UNEP). Yet despite these new initiatives, biodiversity continues to be lost at an alarming rate. Shockingly, an estimated 40-44 million acres of tropical forests are believed to be disappearing annually, taking with them a plethora of life forms. At this rate, the majority of the remaining tropical forests will vanish by the end of the next century. The time is now for the international community to set immediate action plans and priorities to promote conservation and to invest more in programs that demonstrate the true value of biodiversity.

Why Biodiversity Matters

How much do we know about biodiversity and why is it important? After decades of obscurity, or simply being thought of as saving rain forests or protecting selected endangered species, the value of biodiversity conservation has slowly begun to emerge from the shadows. Ironically, it got its biggest boost when the US government refused to sign the Biodiversity Convention in Rio de Janeiro, a move that generated tremendous press coverage and forced many governments around the world to look at biodiversity for the first time. (The Convention was later signed by the Clinton Administration). Despite growing public attention, however, the sum total of biodiversity knowledge is small, both in terms of the total diversity of species on earth and the current and potential value of its use. We can send people to the moon and spacecraft to the farthest reaches of the solar system. We can put millions of bits of rapidly retrievable information on tiny computer chips, yet we do not know, probably to within two orders of magnitude, how many life forms share our planet. Clearly, our measure of biodiversity is embryonic at best.

Science has thus far described only about 1.4 million species of animals, plants and micro-organisms. However, estimates and projections made in the last few years indicate that total species diversity on earth could be as much as 10 million, 30 million or perhaps 100 million or more. What's more, our ignorance of the ecological processes involving this multitude of organisms is even more profound.

The other glaring gap in our knowledge concerns the value of biodiversity. Placing value on the services provided by earth's many species and ecosystems is difficult and, as a quantitative discipline, poorly developed at best. Functioning ecosystems buffer the world against possible climate changes and shifts, for example, in crop yields and sea levels. Most often, however, discussion of biodiversity value revolves around the potential for biotechnology innovations and new pharmaceuticals (possible cures for cancer and AIDS from the tropical rain forest), or a handful of products from tropical countries that are currently traded internationally (timber, rubber, and Brazil nuts from the Amazon, rattan from southeast Asia, etc.). The real value of biodiversity, however, based on actual current use is far more extensive.

While we may not always be aware of it, we all rely on biodiversity in our daily activities. In the US, 25% of all pharmaceutical prescriptions contain active ingredients from plants such as quinine, while some 3,000 antibiotics are derived from micro-organisms. Another important example is coffee. Not only a daily beverage for millions, coffee is also a major export crop for many Latin American and African countries. It is, however, also susceptible to diseases like fungal rusts. To maintain the genetic viability of coffee crops, it is important to conserve wild relatives in their places of origin, like the highlands of East Africa and the eastern rain forests of Madagascar, where more than 50 wild species of coffee grow.

Conservation in Madagascar therefore may be essential to the future of global coffee crops. Likewise, conservation of certain areas is critical to agriculture as we know it. Agriculture accounts for more than 30% of the gross domestic product of low-income developing countries. The value of agricultural trade is in excess of $3 trillion US dollars annually, yet much of our global civilization rests on the cultivation of only seven grasses: rice, wheat, barley, oats, sorghum, millet and maize. These require continued genetic input from wild relatives and cultivars to maintain their resistance to pests and disease. Natural diversity of the wild relatives of these seven grasses must be maintained and seed banks are not enough to do the job, as little evolution and adaptation can take place there. It is therefore crucial to protect areas where the wild relatives of these critically important species grow. Furthermore, an additional 20,000 species of grasses exist, the vast majority of which are not being used.

Biodiversity also has an enormous recreational use, and connected with this is the spiritual and psychological well-being of our own species. No one wants to see the entire planet turn into a desolate urban ecosystem shared mainly with rats, cockroaches and pigeons. Many studies have shown the damaging effects on the human psyche from long-term isolation from nature in urban environments. Increasingly, people are looking to the natural world for escape and as a means of maintaining their sanity, especially in the industrial nations. This translates into good economics as well, as the growing industry of eco-tourism and other nature-based forms of recreation become increasingly popular. Worldwide, nature tourism generates more than $12 billion annually and it is likely to grow even more rapidly in the tropical countries, where it is quickly becoming a major foreign exchange earner.

By: Russell A. Mittermeier and Ian A. Bowles, from: Choices (The Human Development Magazine), December 1993. From the United Nations Development Program.