Species have economic value, therefore species conservation is not only important for environmental reasons but is also important for economic reasons as well. It may be important to note that there are also cultural, aesthetic, ethical, and scientific reasons why species conservation is important—but the focus of this post is about the economic value of species, species conservation, or species preservation.
Industrialized nations have greater scientific and industrial capacity to convert materials from wildlife species into useful industrial and medical products; as a result, it’s not surprising why industrialized nations gain far much more financial benefits from wild species than developing nations do; also, industrialized nations trade more agricultural products than developing nations do.
More and more U.S. Northern crop breeders, for instance, rely on genetic materials from wild relatives of wheat and maize which are two crops heavily involved in international grain trade. Estimates made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture had showed that the use of plant genetic material increases productivity, averaging about one per cent yearly, with a farm-gate value that runs into billions of dollars.
A surviving primitive wild species of maize that had been discovered in a montane forest of south-central Mexico was covering a bare four hectares land area while at the same time being threatened by loggers and farmers. The wild species of maize is a perennial crop, while all other classes, varieties, or kinds of maize are annual crops.
Cross-breeding wild maize with other varieties of maize would produce perennial species and help farmers save money and energy spent annually on ploughing and sowing annual maize which has to be grown every year.
The genetic benefits of wild maize plant, which were discovered when only a few thousand stalks had last remained, could attract several thousand million dollars a year. Wild species are also useful in the production of medicines or medical products. In fact, half of all administered prescriptions originate from wild species or organisms.
Drugs and medicines in the U.S. were once noted to have been attracting some $14 billion per year. Worldwide, the estimate exceeds $40 billion per year, showing just how much certain industries benefit commercially or economically from wildlife species.
Many insecticides, oils, dyes, gums, vegetable fats, waxes, and other types of compounds owe their existence to wildlife-derived materials. Wild plants that bear oil-rich seeds are useful in manufacturing detergents, fibres, detergents, and general comestibles. The Fevillea genus of rain-forest vines, for example, has very high oil content, such that a hectare of it could produce more oil than a hectare of oil palm plantation.
Nature has allotted few plant species with hydrocarbons instead of carbohydrates; due to this trait, some of the plants can thrive and bloom in environments that have been degraded by activities such as strip-mining. By implication, growing plants that have hydrocarbons could help to rehabilitate land that has been degraded by the process of extracting hydrocarbons.
Species preservation or conservation could even help in the improvement of other species. Advancements in gene technology during the last two decades have raised hopes of eventually harvesting crops from seawater, deserts, and other kinds of environments that don’t naturally support the growth of crops.
Many countries that are unable to manage living resources (especially developing or Third World countries) are the same countries that have the highest number of living species and threatened species. Many developing nations have realized the importance of protecting threatened species, but they don’t have the funds and scientific skills to conserve such species.
Industrial nations should support Third World nations, particularly rural peoples, to conserve and reap economic benefits from their indigenous species or genetic resources.
References
1. Agricultural Research Service, Introduction, Classification. Maintenance. Evaluation, and Documentation of Plant Germplasm (Washington. DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture. 1985).
2. L.A. Tatum. ‘The Southern Corn Leaf Blight Epidemic’, Science. Vol. 171. pp. 1113-16, 1971.
3. H.H. Iltis et al., ‘Zea diploperennis (Gramineae), a New Teosinte from Mexico’, Science, 12 January 1979.
4. A.C. Fisher. ‘Economic Analysis and the Extinction of Species’, Department of Energy and Resources. University of California. Berkeley. 1982.
5. N.R. Farnsworth and D.D. Soejarto. ‘Potential Consequence of Plant Extinction in the United States on the Current and Future Availability of Prescription Drugs’, Economic Botany, Vol. 39. pp. 231-40. 1985.
6. N. Myers, A Wealth of Wild Species (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. 1983).
7. M.L. Oldfield, ‘The Value of Conserving Genetic Resources’, National Park Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Washington, DC, 1984; L.H. Princen, ‘New Crop Development for Industrial Oils’, Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, Vol. 56, pp. 845-48, 1979.
8. A.H. Gentry and R. Wettach, ‘Fevillea – A New Oilseed from Amazonian Peru’, Economic Botany, Vol. 40, pp. 177-85, 1986.
9. M. Calvin. ‘Hydrocarbons from Plants: Analytical Methods and Observations’, Naturwissenschaften. Vol. 67, pp. 525-33, 1980; C.W. Hinman et al., ‘Five Potential New Crops for Arid Lands’, Environmental Conservation. Winter 1985.
10. T. Eisner. ‘Chemicals. Genes, and the Loss of Species’. Nature Conservancy News, Vol. 33. No. 6, pp. 23-24, 1983.
11. W.J. Brill. ‘Nitrogen Fixation: Basic to Applied’, American Scientist, Vol. 67, pp. 458-65. 1979.
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