What Lies Ahead?

The population of the Earth will likely double by the year 2050, resulting in a world of at least 10 billion people, the largest number of whom, by far, will live in tropical and subtropical Asia, Africa, and South America. These are as well the regions in greatest need of economic development, and the twin pressures of population growth and economic expansion can only increase the demands on biological resources. We can anticipate an ever-increasing competition among different uses of the available land, and the maintenance of biodiversity may not rank high in the face of other, more obvious demands.

Many of the existing policies of our own country that have been enacted to preserve biodiversity have been focused on threatened species, or to preserve striking or unique ecosystems, such as Yellowstone National Park. The Endangered Species Act, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and our system of National Parks will continue to help in preserving biodiversity. But there are other areas of public policy that are as useful and important. In fact, it may well be that lands and waters that are necessarily exploited for their natural resources will hold the key for practical strategies to maintain biodiversity, for parks and preserves, alone, are inadequate for the task.

In truth, much that happens to preserve or decrease biodiversity arises through secondary effects of policies that are enacted for other reasons. Fisheries policies that aim to maintain fishery harvests; forestry policies that seek to maximize the economic yield of marketable timber; agricultural policies that maintain subsidies for keeping land in production that might be used for other beneficial purposes; and policies for the management of public lands that encourage overgrazing by maintaining artificially low grazing fees all have important negative effects on biodiversity, although not by design.

Other existing policies have impacts that work in the other direction. But unless the impacts on biodiversity of private acts or public policies are understood, and until there exists a broader consensus regarding the relative value of biodiversity, there is little hope, in this or any country, of holding the line at the levels that are needed for almost any use or service. We all need to be more aware of the direct benefits, indirect benefits, services, and future potential that biodiversity offers for both private gain and public benefit. We need greater awareness and coordination of policies that affect biodiversity, and national goals that go deeper than the protection of endangered species and the preservation of public parks.

From an economic perspective, much more work needs to be done to put a fair and meaningful valuation on biodiversity. The service aspects of biodiversity must be understood, and market mechanisms put in place to include these very real factors in both policy and business decisions.

From a scientific perspective, we need to learn more, and more quickly, about the role that biodiversity plays in the working of ecosystems. Gaps in our present knowledge of these connections now limit our assessments of the risks imposed when biodiversity declines, and preclude more complete economic evaluations.

In all of this, calls will be heard to defer action until we have in hand a more complete and reliable inventory of the present extent and variety of life on Earth, in terms of the number of species of plants and animals. Although counting must go on, it is now clear that waiting to learn the full extent of biodiversity before acting to stem so precipitous a decline is not a prudent choice, for both ecological and economic reasons.

Last, but certainly not least, are the issues of stewardship and ethics. In the long run, we must be concerned about maintaining the capability of the biological world to adapt, through adjustment and evolution, to changes in the physical environment. In addition, many would agree that as a society we bear the ethical obligation to protect the habitability of the planet, and to act as responsible stewards of its biological riches for the present and future welfare of the human species. To do that requires an appreciation of the value of biodiversity--both what it provides for the natural world and the ways that we can use it--and a commitment to preserve it so that our children and their children will continue to realize the benefits of a biologically rich Earth. Surely such a challenge demands the attention of scholars and policy-makers alike.