1. Introduction

JANET BELL and MICHEL PIMBERT

In 1992, 20 years after the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, governments came together in Brazil for the UN Conference on Environment and Development. This 'Earth Summit' highlighted how important environment and development issues had become on the international political agenda. One of the aims of the summit was to establish the first global action plan for a sustainable future for the planet. It was the first time that many countries had accepted environment and development as important issues on the political agenda. The conservation and use of biological diversity, or biodiversity for short, were the hottest topics on the conference agenda, and hence the media was full of it at the time. To many people around the world reading the newspapers and watching TV, this was their first conscious encounter with biodiversity or at least with the technical term. To many others, who were probably too busy tending their crops and feeding their families to worry about politicians expounding earnestly in Rio de Janeiro about global environmental threats, biodiversity was not news. It had been an integral and highly valued part of their lives for centuries.

The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is now one of the most important challenges facing the planet, because if we destroy diversity we destroy life itself. But it is more than an environmental issue, even in the broadest sense of the term. As biodiversity declines and as it is transformed into a globally traded commodity, a whole host of other important issues - such as human rights and ethical concerns - are drawn into the debate. This hook aims to help the reader understand the huge importance that biodiversity has for our lives and the changes that we will have to face as our relationship with the planet's biological wealth changes. The way biodiversity is conserved and used will have a fundamental impact on the food on our dinner plates, the medicines that we buy, the livelihoods of farming communities all over the world, the future of indigenous peoples, tropical forests and African savannahs, and the hank balances of multinational corporations.

What is biodiversity?

The word biodiversity conjures up pictures of flowering meadows and colourful butterflies. Technically, biodiversity is often defined as the diversity of life. It refers to the millions of different life forms found on earth, the genetic variation between them, and their complex ecological interrelations. As such, biodiversity is one of the planet's life-support systems. It embraces the differences between a dandelion and a dodo (species diversity), between green and red apples (different varieties), between eskimos and aborigines (cultural diversity) and between alpine meadows and coral reefs (ecosystem diversity).

Genetic diversity is the diversity of genes in the individual plants, animals and micro-organisms that inhabit the Earth. Species are made up of individuals with different characteristics inherited through their genes. The different characteristics expressed allow species to evolve gradually and to survive changing environmental conditions. Genetic diversity is the ultimate source of all biodiversity amongst species and ecosystems.

In many of the debates on the issue, biodiversity is viewed as an arithmetical construct, and biodiversity conservation is seen simply in teens of saving individual species (such as the rhino or the panda) or whole ecosystems (like wetlands or tropical forests). Increasingly it is being viewed even more narrowly, simply in terms of saving genes in whichever form is most convenient, which often means isolating them from their host organisms and ecosystems. But biodiversity is much more than genes. As Vandana Shiva points out in Chapter 4.4, biodiversity is a web of relationships which ensures balance and sustainability in ecosystems.

No one knows how many different life forms share the planet. Generally accepted estimates of the total number of species vary from 5 to 25 million. Yet so far scientists have been able to identify a total of only 1.5 million animal species and 300 000 plant species.

The bulk of biodiversity is in the tropics, largely because recurrent ice ages slowed down the proliferation of life closer to the poles. Consequently, a mere 7% of the earth's surface holds between half and three-quarters of the world's biodiversity. Virtually none of this wealth resides anywhere near Europe or the United States. For example, one study found that a 15 hectare plot in Borneo supported more tree species than the entire United States. The Amazon river was found to hold three times more aquatic species than the Mississippi river and ten times more than can be found in any European river. There is more biodiversity on one tiny island off the coast of Panama than there is in all of Great Britain. Table 1.1 shows the huge differences in plant species in selected countries.

The importance of biodiversity

If we destroy biodiversity, we ultimately destroy not only individual species but our own lives, either directly or indirectly. For many farmers and indigenous peoples in the South, there is a direct connection. Most traditional livelihoods depend on a very high degree of diversity, he it cultural, biological or economic, and are thus threatened by loss of biodiversity For example, Mexico's Huastec Indian communities cultivate some 300 different plants in a mixture of small gardens, agricultural fields and forest plots. In a typical Indonesian village it is not difficult to find 100 or more different plant species, all used for specific needs: for food, medicine, building materials, fuel-wood and so on. Practices developed over the centuries for collecting, harvesting and cultivating the resources needed for sustaining livelihoods are carefully adapted to prevailing, and often challenging, environmental conditions. This requires a deep and extensive understanding of plants, animals, ecosystems, climate, soils and other factors (see Box 1.1 and Table 1.2). Without these the communities would simply die.

Table 1.1 Plant biodiversity: comparisons among selected countries and regions

In the North, diversity is equally crucial although most people are several steps removed from food production. Food and health systems are highly dependent on biodiversity. Without regular collecting expeditions to the forests, fields, markets and gardens of communities in the South, industrialized countries would not he able to produce the food that they do, and would not have the range of medicines that they now possess. It is a popular misconception that the application of biotechnology will remove the North's dependence on natural biodiversity and that biotechnology will be a useful tool in conserving and enhancing biodiversity Chapter 2 explodes these beliefs.

Infusions of new genetic material will continue to he important to agriculture and medicine worldwide. For example, it is estimated that Mexican wheat varieties currently contribute $2700 million crop production in industrialized countries. One gene from a single Ethiopian barley plant now protects California's $160 million barley crop from the yellow dwarf virus. The importance of maintaining a diverse gene pool to protect against plant diseases is illustrated in Box 1.2. It is impossible to predict what genetic characteristics may become valuable in the future, so allowing our genetic heritage to dwindle is highly dangerous. Climate change, for example, will demand new and adapted plant varieties and animal breeds derived from natural organisms in order to cope with its impact.

Industries involved in the development of new products derived from natural raw materials (drugs, oils, perfumes, biopesticides, resins, dyes etc.) also rely heavily on bioprospecting activities, in other words the exploration, extraction and screening of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge for commercially valuable genetic and biochemical resources (This is explored in Chapter 4).

Table 1.2. Use of wild species for food and medicine by farming communities

Source: Scoones, I, Melnyk, M, and Pretty, J., 1992. The Hidden Harvest. Wild Foods and Agricultural Systems an annotated bibliography. IIED, WWF-I and SIDA. IIED, London.

The loss of biodiversity and its causes

Our biological heritage is disappearing at an alarming and accelerating rate: whilst it is estimated that early this century the earth may have lost one species a year, we are currently losing between one and 50 species a day. Industrialized countries, in particular, have suffered huge losses in the genetic diversity of their crops and domesticated animals. For example, since the turn of the century 97% of the varieties of 75 vegetable species in the US have become extinct. Some scientists predict that if we continue current practices the world will lose a quarter of all our biological wealth by the middle of the next century.

Many factors contribute to the loss of biodiversity. The destruction of tropical rainforests in the search for timber and minerals is partly responsible. So is the construction of large-scale projects which dam rivers and flood areas rich in biodiversity. Other immediate causes include the migration of farmers from overpopulated areas to fragile ecosystems, the pollution of wetlands, modern farming practices, and the over-exploitation of plants, animals and other resources to meet the ever-increasing demands of the rich industrialized countries (see Box 1.3).

A gross imbalance of wealth, power and natural resource utilisation is inherent in the modern world order. Industrial countries, which contain only 26% of the world's population, consume 80% of its energy and about 40% of its food. For example, the United States' consumption of fossil fuel is 33 times higher per capita than India's. In 1989, OECD* countries - home to only 16% of the world's population accounted for 40% of the world's sulphur dioxide emissions and 54% of its nitrogen dioxide emissions. Sulphur and nitrogen oxides are key constituents of acid rain. In the same year, these countries produced 68% of the world's industrial waste and 38% of the gases that are thought to cause global warming.

Figure

The excessive demands of the industrialized countries threaten biodiversity throughout the world, but the impact is particularly clear in the developing world, partly because these countries have so much biodiversity to lose, and partly because exploitative practices are often imposed by commercial forces from the North. The affluent North has come to depend on the developing South to provide it with cheap raw materials such as timber, cotton, cocaine, and plant and animal genes.

In addition, the biodiversity-nurturing practices of the Southern countries that began the long process of domesticating plants for agriculture are being seriously undermined. It was in part these very practices which created the impressive genetic mosaic of local crops, wild plants and animals, thus enabling the development of societies all over the world. Now new uniform crop varieties are replacing the myriad of species grown traditionally. For example, scientists predict that by the year 2000 Indian farmers will be growing 12 varieties of rice in place of the 30 000 that have been nurtured and cultivated over the centuries.

Conservation strategies

Recognition of the world's shrinking biological heritage has prompted numerous reactions, both at international and national levels, as well as within local communities. Several international agreements and technical measures are being promoted to conserve the biodiversity left in the world's forests, wetlands, coastal waters and in farmers' fields.

The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) provided important guidelines and international legally-binding instruments for governments to tackle the more immediate and fundamental causes of biodiversity loss. Agenda 21 is a comprehensive action plan for the 1990s and beyond, adopted at the Conference by the international community. It presents a set of integrated strategies and detailed programmes to halt and reverse the effects of environmental degradation. The Conference's Convention on Biological Diversity (see Box 1.4) and the Climate Convention can also potentially help decision-makers to re-orientate national policies towards more environmentally sound and sustainable development.

On the practical level, several complementary methods are being used to conserve biodiversity with different degrees of success. These methods can be divided into two broad categories: in situ conservation, which means conserving plants, animals and micro-organisms within their natural habitat; and ex situ conservation, which means maintaining living organisms out of their natural habitat, either as whole living organisms or as parts (cells, sperm, seeds, etc.)

Ex situ conservation

There are three main methods of ex situ conservation used for plants: genebanks, field gene banks and tissue culture. Zoos and cryopreservation are important means for ex situ conservation for animals.

Genebanks: Genebanks are vast refrigerators where seed samples are stored under controlled humidity and temperature conditions. Under the recommended storage conditions, some seeds can survive for up to a hundred years, but regular checking for viability and damage is necessary. Samples of crop varieties must be grown out before the seeds begin to deteriorate so that a fresh generation of seeds can be obtained for continued storage. Wild species are more difficult to handle during this regeneration process as the conditions required to germinate them are often unknown.

Some 3.9 million seed samples are held in gene banks around the world but, given the challenges of keeping seeds viable, not all are healthy. Seeds lose viability if they are not grown out regularly; cold storage can affect the genetic material in the seed; and simple mismanagement, like a power failure, can endanger the materials stored. A 1989 evaluation of the US central seed bank disclosed the alarming information that of all the stored seed samples, only 28% had been recently tested and found healthy. The rest of the collection had not been tested for at least five years, contained too few seeds to risk testing, or was already dead. In 1991, representatives of 13 national germplasm banks in Latin America announced that between 50% and 100% of the maize seed collected between 1940 and 1980 was no longer viable.

The network of International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) is one of the most important ex situ repositories of agricultural biodiversity, with some four and a half billion seeds from around the world (see Box 1.5).

Field genebanks Plant species that do not easily produce seed, and those with seeds that cannot be dried without injuring them (such as mango, cacao, avocado and nutmeg) are usually conserved in field genebanks. These include botanical gardens, arboreta, plantations and other areas of land in which collections of growing plants have been assembled. Some of the most valuable conserved collections of bananas, plantains, coffee and oil palms were established long ago in field genebanks.

Tissue culture Plant tissue culture involves growing plants in tubes in nutrient-rich jelly, and is well suited for mass cloning of a single species or crop variety. Crops and wild relatives that reproduce vegetatively (e.g. potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes), or have seeds that cannot be dried without injuring them, can also be maintained this way.

Zoos: Zoos can contribute to the conservation of individual animal species, especially those that are critically endangered. Zoo collections sometimes include individuals of species which have entirely disappeared from the wild. These captive specimens therefore represent an important part of the remaining genepool which may be used in the future to supplement wild populations, or to build entirely new populations. Some well-known reintroduction projects involving zoo-born animals include the European bison in Poland, the Hawaiian goose in Hawaii, the golden lion tamarin in Brazil and the eagle owl in various European countries.

Perhaps the most important contribution zoos make to conservation is through their public education role. Zoos attract many more visitors than most natural history museums, botanical gardens and other comparable nature-orientated institutions. Worldwide, the existing 1000 or so zoos annually receive 600 million visitors - over 10% of the world's entire population. Living animals exhibited in zoos clearly have an enormous power of attraction.

Cryopreservation: Cryopreservation techniques - the short- or long-term conservation of sperm, egg cells and embryos in liquid nitrogen (at -196°C) - are used in combination with artificial reproduction techniques in zoos. Eland antelopes and baboons have been produced by transplantations of frozen and thawed embryos. Frozen and subsequently thawed sperm have been used to fertilize deer, apes and wolves, with young successfully produced from these artificial reproductions. Different zoos and zoo-related research institutions have already accumulated extensive collections of deep-frozen germplasm material from exotic animal species.

Genetic Engineering Advances in gene manipulation techniques mean that, for commercial and therapeutic reasons, genes in any form are now an important focus for conservation strategies. These developments signify a shift away from conserving ecosystems and organisms to conserving individual cells and genes. Since genes can now be isolated and stored outside the organism they derive from, ex situ conservation is taken a step further away from the natural habitat. The Human Genome and Human Genome Diversity Projects (see Chapter 5) have added yet another dimension to biodiversity conservation, and have put the spotlight on human genes as an important new resource.

In Situ Conservation

The in situ approach to conservation aims to preserve whole tracts of land and water so that ecosystems and diversity among species can thrive and continue to evolve. National Parks and other protected areas are the vehicles for this approach.

There are now close to X500 major protected areas throughout the world. These are widely distributed across continents. Worldwide, the growth in national parks and protected areas has been relatively rapid over the last two decades. Protected areas now exist in 169 countries. Strictly protected areas (such as national parks and strict nature reserves) constitute 3% of the earth's surface. At least another 40 000 protected areas of various sorts have been established that do not meet internationally recognized criteria, but which contribute to biodiversity conservation. This brings the total protected land area up to almost 10%.

According to the Fourth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas held in Caracas in 1992, each country should now designate a minimum of 10% of each biome under its jurisdiction (e.g. oceans, forests, tundra, wetlands, grasslands etc.) as a protected area. Many countries have already classified more than 10% of their territories as protected areas. These include Costa Rica with 29%, Honduras with 22%, Bhutan with 22%, Botswana and Panama with 18%, Guatemala with 16%, Nicaragua with 14%, Central African Republic with 12%, Malaysia, Benin and Tanzania with 11.5%, Senegal with 10.8% and Rwanda with 10.4%.

Conventionally, the establishment of protected areas has involved the displacement of local people, but increasingly moves are being made to involve local communities and to integrate their development needs into conservation strategies.

Some critics argue that many of the methods deployed to conserve biological diversity are biased towards a Western model where money and trained personnel ensure that technologies work and that laws are enforced to secure conservation objectives. During and after the colonial period, these conservation technologies, and the values associated with them, were extended from the North to the South - often in a classical, top-down manner. Western science and the ideology of conservation hang together through this top-down, transfer of technology, model. They are mutually reinforcing elements of the blueprint paradigm which still informs much of today's design and management of ex situ and in situ conservation everywhere (Table 1.3).

The politics of biodiversity

One of the reasons that biodiversity is becoming such an important issue is not so much because of its disappearance, but because of growing recognition of its increased economic value and potential due to developments in biotechnology. In the US alone, sales of plant-based drugs amounted to $15.5 billion in 1990. Biodiversity has become a major focus of interest for governments and business alike, which recognize the rich pickings to be had from it (see Chapter 2). Consequently, biodiversity is rapidly being 'commodified', just like copper or gold. Biodiversity is no longer seen as a freely available resource and a great deal of effort is now being invested internationally into drawing up agreements for rights, ownership and access to genetic resources. Linked to this trend is the demand from countries in the South to share in the benefits of the commercialization of the world's genetic heritage, most of which comes from their back yards.

Table 1.3. Biodiversity conservation and natural resource management paradigms: the contrast between blueprint and learning-process approaches

Source: Adapted from David Korten in Pimbert and Pretty, 1995"

The commodification of biodiversity has caused a shift in the ownership of genetic resources from communal to private. This in turn has opened up a minefield of issues concerning intellectual property rights (Chapter 3), establishing monetary values for the resources and raising questions over the sharing of benefits from their sale and use (Chapter 4). The proposed GATT agreement is set to increase dramatically the momentum of the shift in ownership and control of biodiversity (see Box 1.6).

At the Earth Summit in 1992, governments addressed the need to manage the world's biological heritage more carefully. The Biodiversity Convention signed by 152 countries focuses on two main issues: steps required to stem the erosion of biological diversity and to address the thorny question of rights to, and compensation for, the use of genetic resources and indigenous knowledge (see Box 1.4). Reactions to the Convention have been mixed. Some welcome it as the first political commitment to biodiversity protection and because it provides the first framework for a global conservation strategy. Others, however, see it as a 'biological GATT', set to accelerate the shift towards privatization of genetic resources and control by the North. Pat Mooney suggests that it is a fast-track GATT, since the framework for the Convention will be implemented more rapidly than GATT itself.

It is clear that biodiversity will become even more pressing as an issue over the next decades. Its importance has long been recognized by farmers and indigenous peoples around the world, but their interests and concerns about biodiversity are changing. Many are now rejecting the North's moves towards monopolistic control of life forms and are calling for compensation for their knowledge and work which has nurtured diversity over the centuries. At the same time indigenous people are themselves threatened with extinction, which brings in new issues of concern, particularly since they are themselves becoming the objects of bioprospecting. Biodiversity is now well embedded into the political and business agendas. It is set to become more and more of an issue for consumers and producers all over the world as food and drug production moves from forests, fields and lakes into the laboratories, along with human reproduction itself.

In this fast-changing debate no one questions the need to conserve biological diversity. Political disagreements revolve around questions like, 'Conservation and use for whom?', 'For what?', 'In whose interests?', and 'With what effects at local, national and international levels?' These are difficult questions for conservationists, development planners, staff of nongovernmental organizations and other decision-makers involved with the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in international, national and local forums. Depending on how these questions are answered, either existing trends in ex-and in-situ conservation could be reinforced or new approaches could be explored to encourage more diversity, and more decentralization and democracy in the conservation and management of biological resources.

The commercialization route to conservation is being promoted by others besides commercial interests alone. For example, both the World Bank's private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the World Bank-controlled Global Environment Facility (GEF), have begun talks with potential investors about the possibilities of selling biological diversity for profit. The proposed biodiversity venture capital fund would work on a planetary scale. So far three possible areas have been identified for funding: ecotourism (marketing tourism in protected areas to wealthy tourists); the screening and study of species in protected areas and tropical ecosystems for natural product development (such as medicines, perfumes, waxes, biopesticides); and the commercialization of existing knowledge of traditional medicines.

This new approach is not fanciful: such moves have already begun. For instance, in an August 1995 advertisement in the Financial Times, the Zambian Government advertised tender leases to foreign investors for 25 biodiversity-rich sites (ranging from five to 105 hectares) in several Zambian national parks. This particular advertisement focused on attracting investors for the tourism industry, but this kind of initiative sets convenient precedents for possible bioprospecting agreements. China is already taking the next step.

For those who support alternative approaches, resisting uniformity, control and centralization implies a profound shift in conservation and natural resource management strategies. It implies moving from a top-down, blueprint approach towards a bottom-up, people-centered, process-orientated approach (See Table 1.3). It requires that outside institutions (public sector, NGOs, international bodies) no longer view themselves as 'implementors' (who are responsible for planning, implementing, managing and evaluating projects for local people), but 'enablers' (who help local people to plan, implement and manage their own projects).

On-farm conservation offers an example of a more participatory, process-orientated approach to the management of biological resources. This approach has been the backbone of agricultural development since farming began, but is only now becoming widely recognized as important in the light of the problems with gene banks and other in situ mechanisms. This conservation mode builds on rural people's knowledge and their abilities to experiment, analyse, evaluate and extend technologies. Local institutions and groups (farmer research groups, credit management groups, consumer clubs and so on) help to co-ordinate community action among and within villages. External professionals and institutions behave in a more enabling manner, facilitating a process of local empowerment through changes in working relationships and policies that determine who conserves and uses biodiversity, how and for whom. But simply adopting a participative approach to the management of biodiversity does not magically remove the conflict farmers face between conserving varieties and maximizing their income under the current economic system.

These reversals from the normal are more fully explored in Chapter 6 and could have major implications for the way that conservation and development are practiced in the future.

References

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2. RAFI (1993) Who is who in Biodiversity Ottawa.

3. UNDP (1994) Conserving Indigeneous Knowledge: Integrating Two Systems of Innovation. New York.

4. UNDP (1994). ibid.

5. CIIR (1993). Biodiversity - What's at Stake? CIIR Comment.

6. Fowler, C. and Mooney, P. (1990), The Threatened Gene. Lutterworth, Cambridge.

7. CIIR (1993) op. cit.

8. OECD (1991) L'Etat de l'Environnement Paris.

9. CIIR (1993) op. cit.

10. GRAIN (1994) Intellectual Property Rights for Whom? Biobriefing No. 4. GRAIN. Barcelona.

11. Findings of a three-month investigation of Associated Press (AP), reported in Agrinews, Vol. 14, No.14. (1989).

12. Council for Tropical and Subtropical Agricultural Research (ASTAF, 1991), ASTAF Circular 28:17.

13. Modina, R. and Ridao, A. (1987). IRRI Rice, the Miracle that Never Was, ACES Foundation, Quezon City, the Philippines.

14. GRAIN (1994) A System in Crisis. Seedling, 11(2): pp 11-19.

15. Stated in a letter of August 16, 1994 to 'Mr. Leader' of the US Senate. The letter is supported by the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary responsible for the Environmental Protection Agency and calls for the Senate to ratify US participation in the Convention on Biological Diversity. Quoted in 'Declaring the Benefits', RAFI Occasional Paper Series, Vol. 1, No. 3, October 1994.

16. McNeely, J.A. (1994) Protected Areas for the 21st Century: Working to Provide Benefits to Society. Biodiversity and Conservation 3. pp 390-405.

17. Pimbert, M.P. and Pretty, J.N. (1995). Parks, People and Professionals. Putting Participation into Protected Area Management. UNRISD-IIED-WWF Discussion Paper no. 57. UNRISD, Geneva.

18. Reid, W.V., Laird, S.A et al. (1993). A New Lease on Life. In: Biodiversity Prospecting, World Resources Institute, Washington.

19. Chatterjee, P. (1994) Bankcheck, January, pp. 3-23.

20. Ghimire, K. and Pimbert, M.P. (eds.) (1996). Social Change and Conservation: Environmental Politics and Impacts of National Parks and Protected Areas, Earthscan and Unrisd, London.

21. Pimbert, M.P and Pretty, J.N. (1995). op. cit.