Monitoring The UN > The UN and Sustainable Development

Biological Diversity
UNA-Canada's "On the Road to Brazil" Series
-Issue Paper No.6-

Biological Diversity: An Introduction

From the depths of the ocean to the snow-capped mountain peaks, our world teems with life. A startling variety of plants, animals, and micro-organisms coexist in complex, interlocking ways in a wide range of natural habitats. No one is even sure how many different species of living organisms share the earth with us. About 1.7 million species have been formally named, but there could be as many as 30 million other species which have not yet been identified!

Within each species, there is further diversity measured by the variation in genes among the members of a population. It is this genetic variation which determines that some roses will be red and others yellow, that some chickens will be best for producing meat and others eggs.

Biological diversity -- genetic variation, the number of species, and the different ecosystems in which they coexist -- is among our greatest treasures. Yet, in spite of world-wide conservation efforts, our biological resources are being lost. Delicate ecosystems, damaged by acid rain, waste disposal, and deforestation, are losing their ability to sustain life. Overharvesting and killing of some species compounds the problem. Indeed, if present rates of extinction continue, a quarter of the world’s species will be gone by the end of the century.

Why is Biological Diversity Important?

For many conservationists, there is an ethical imperative to protect all of the various biological resources of the earth. Beyond consideration of our role as human stewards, however, there are more pragmatic reasons why biological diversity is important.

In terms of agriculture, for example, the existence of genetic diversity offers the opportunity to improve strains of crop plants and livestock and to develop "new" crop species. In the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture attributes $1-billion annually of increased crop productivity to the introduction of genetic characteristics from wild species into major crop plants.

The diversity of wild plant and animal species also provides enormous potential for both the development and testing of new drugs. Already more than a quarter of all prescription drugs are made from organic substances that originate in rain forests, the location offering the greatest biological diversity.

In addition, places such as parks, reserves and wildlife refuges, where people go to see wild species and other natural features, contribute enormously to the economy. Recent studies have found that wildlife-associated recreation accounts for billions of dollars spent in Canada each year. The potential of developing countries to attract foreign exchange by promoting "ecotourism" is beginning to be realized, but much more can still be done.

Perhaps the most important reason for conserving biological diversity is that all life, including human life, depends on keeping the planet healthy. All living things interact with their environment in an interlocking way, such that the fate of one species is closely tied to that of others. We rely on our environmental resources for many benefits which we often take for granted -- the biologically mediated recycling of nutrients, purifying of water, flood control, breakdown of pollutants, protection of soil, fixation of solar energy, and other life-sustaining functions.

Whenever biological diversity is lost, the overall system is stressed as it attempts to balance the new equation. Even a small change can have complex and unpredictable results. The loss of lone species, for example, could trigger an increase in other species which use the same resources, or it could lead to decreases in species which preyed upon it. Considering the limitations of our existing knowledge, can we afford to squander biological resources which may be useful or even essential?

What Threatens Biological Diversity?

Despite efforts to increase awareness of the need to conserve biological diversity, many organisms continue to be exposed to a variety of human-caused threats. The most serious of these is habitat alteration, often related to land-use changes on a regional scale which involve massive reductions in natural vegetation.

Such reductions inevitably result in population declines of indigenous species, with a corresponding loss in genetic diversity and an increase in vulnerability to disease, hunting, and random population fluctuations.

Most circumstances of habitat alteration can be traced back to human population increases. As our population has increased, forests have fallen and wetlands and marshes have been lost in order to provide new land for raising crops and livestock or for urban development.

In forests where large areas have been cleared to provide fuel wood and timber, natural regeneration may not occur because seed sources may not be available and soils may have been degraded. This is particularly true in tropical forests, where climax species have large and poorly dispersed seeds, where close interdependence with micro-organisms is probably common, and where nutrients are rapidly leached from exposed soil. The result is soil loss, droughts, floods, disrupted water supplies, and a legacy of unproductive land.

In the oceans, coral reefs are under severe assault. These fragile, species-rich ecosystems are threatened by extensive mining for concrete production and the commercial collection of coral.

But biological diversity is threatened not only by outright physical destruction of habitat. Many habitats have been seriously polluted and degraded through chemical contamination and improper waste disposal.

Excessive commercial harvesting has caused the virtual elimination of several species. Whenever individuals are taken at a higher rate than can be sustained by the natural reproductive capacity of the species, there exists the danger of loss of biological diversity.

Another important factor is climate change, often related to changing land-use patterns. The global warming of the "greenhouse" effect will certainly have a serious impact on many ecosystems.

What Can Be Done?

Governments have adopted numerous measures to address different aspects of the problem, including national conservation programmes, international conventions, and other instruments. In Indonesia, for example, fines have been imposed and forestry licences revoked if companies are caught cutting trees smaller than the law allows, or if they overharvest the forests. Australia wants to have its remaining rain forests included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, which would oblige the country to "preserve, conserve, and rehabilitate" forests and make them off limits to development.

In the late 1960’s India was faced with a massive hemorrhage in its tiger population because expanding human populations were encroaching on and destroying the tiger’s last sanctuaries. India rose to the challenge and launched Project Tiger in 1972.

International conventions were drafted and national laws were passed to protect the tiger, which became a symbol for all of the natural riches of wildlife and wildlands in the sub-continent.

Special tiger reserves were declared. More and better trained and equipped staff were put in place to manage these precious resources. Economic planners faced the challenges associated with creating the tiger reserves and the surrounding forest areas as positive features in regional land-use and economic advancement programs. No longer could clearing the jungle and killing tigers be considered the mark of progress it once had been.1

Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive international programme for the conservation and use of biological diversity as a component of sustainable development. Existing programmes are fragmented, poorly funded, and fail to address the economic realities which lie at the root of the problem.

The sad truth is that the areas with the greatest biological diversity are frequently those with the fewest economic means to implement conservation programs. Most developing countries are faced with more immediate demands than environmental problems, such as getting a handle on massive debts. For biologically rich but economically poor countries such as Zaire, Burma, and Indonesia, using their resources to generate income for their increasing populations has priority.

International Efforts

The conservation of biological diversity is the aim of a number of international conventions. These include the 1946 International Convention for The Regulation of Whaling (to protect all whale species from overhunting and to establish a system of conservation), the 1971 Convention on Wetlands (to stem the progressive encroachment of wetlands, recognizing their fundamental ecological importance), the World Heritage Convention of 1972 (to promote conservation and preservation of heritage sites), the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and the 1979 Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (to protect those that migrate across or near national boundaries).

The United Nations family of agencies also strives for the conservation and utilization of biological diversity through improved knowledge, assessment and monitoring of genetic resources and ecosystems. To this end, the UN seeks to encourage appropriate national and international tools and mechanisms.

International and UN efforts are guided by principles embodied in the several key documents, among them the World Charter for Nature of 1982 and the World Conservation Strategy of 1980. The Strategy, which brought about a turning point in thinking about economic development and protection of the biosphere, was commissioned by the UN Environment Programme and prepared by three leading international non-governmental organizations.

The Strategy makes conservation a primary policy concern of all economic sectors in government rather than that of one separate department. It designs environmental policies that can "anticipate and prevent" rather than "react and cure".

National actions would conserve renewable resources like fisheries, forests, and cropland; protect natural areas; and control pollution. International actions would protect the "global commons": the atmosphere, the oceans, and the continent of Antarctica.

Unfortunately, the Strategy lacked any provision either for promotion or for monitoring progress. Perhaps as a result, it is being applied in a rather piecemeal fashion. Some countries have endorsed it, but by and large, it is individuals and organizations that have responded to its objectives and who use it as a blueprint and checklist for policy development.

However, nearly ten years after its publication, there are 54 other strategies under way or completed in 41 countries and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature -- which helped to write the original Strategy -- is setting up a data base to keep track of them.

The adoption and launching of the second World Conservation Strategy is one of the most important items on the international agenda relating to biological diversity prior to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Brazil. One of the priorities of the new Strategy will be to improve coordination and implementation of the various conservation conventions, agreements, strategies and action plans.

The Brazil Conference

The UNCED itself is expected to provide the opportunity to adopt an international framework legal instrument on biological diversity. Already the negotiating process towards a convention has been launched under the auspices of the UN Environment Programme. This process is strongly supported by Canada; a convention on biological diversity could be one of the UNCED’s most significant accomplishments. At the same time, it is hoped that the UNCED will also launch international legal instruments on climate change and on forests, both of which would also have significant impact on world-wide biological diversity.

Issues at UNCED

UNCED may address a number of gaps that can be summarized in the following key points: