Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Solving other contemporary environmental problems, such as habitat
fragmentation and attendant species extinctions (Simberloff and Abele
1976), has been a less successful enterprise. In this case, the solution to the
problem—halting land development and massive scale resource extraction—
is usually perceived as standing in the way of human enterprise and eco-
nomic well being. Moreover, those most directly affected by such activity
often are non-human species. And, in many cases, the direct consequences
of the actions (e.g., tropical forest loss) occur in distant lands under differ-
ent government regimes. In this case, the problems were “out of [immedi-
ate] sight” and so could be relegated “out of mind.”
The irony in such reasoning is that we take great pains to understand
how one kind of economy—the market economy—functions; and we take
great pains to protect the integrity and functioning of the capital markets
that drive economic progress. Society spends comparatively much less time
thinking about, understanding, and protecting another major economy—
the natural economy—resulting from ecosystem functions and services. Like
market economies, myriad lines of dependency exist between species of
producers and consumers within natural economies. Humans are not ex-
empted from these dependencies. Any collapse in ecosystem functions, in-
cluding collapse due to deforestation and fragmentation, stands to
reverberate through the market economy, in turn, affecting human well
being.Therefore, slogans such as “jobs versus the environment” that pit pu-
tative economic progress against measures to conserve ecosystem functions
may be misguided. Ecosystems ultimately undergird and drive our eco-
nomic stability.
The aim of this topic is to offer in-
sight into the link between the diver-
sity of life—biodiversity—and the
structure and functioning of ecosys-
tems. As with the problems of the
mid 1900s, the role of ecological sci-
ence is central to identifying and illu-
minating the intricate ways that
nature works. However, unlike in the
past, the challenge for ecological sci-
ence in discerning the causal chain of
effects is becoming more difficult.
But the challenge is surmountable.
Any collapse in ecosystem func-
tions, including collapse due to
deforestation and fragmentation,
stands to reverberate through the
market economy, in turn, affecting
human well being. Therefore,
slogans such as “jobs versus the
environment” that pit putative eco-
nomic progress against measures
to conserve ecosystem functions
may be misguided. Ecosystems
ultimately undergird and drive our
economic stability.
