Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
widespread occurrence and worsening of human-induced biological extinctions.
Current human-induced extinctions are estimated at 1,000 to 10,000 times higher
than existed in pre-human times, although this estimate must be treated as a coarse
approximation (see pages 54-60). The biologist and taxonomist E. O. Wilson - one
of the earliest and probably the most infl uential proponent of biodiversity as both
a scientifi c concept and environmentalist concern - has regularly drawn attention
to the worsening threats of extinction, combined with newly available data on
deforestation and advances in tropical biology, as one of the main forces behind
the explosion of interest in biodiversity (Wilson, 1988).
Wilson and other advocates of biodiversity conservation have frequently traced
scientifi c and environmentalist concerns for biodiversity to the 1986 founding of
the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB). The SCB commitment to biodiversity
conservation (parks, reserves, protected areas) has been applied globally in tens of
thousands of management units during the course of the past couple decades
(Zimmerer et al., 2004). The proliferation of policies and management must be seen
as a global geographic phenomenon that has arisen in response to acceleration
of the anthropogenic extinctions of biodiversity. Still the relations of biodiversity
conservation to environmentalism, policy, and management, while dynamic and
undeniable, are complex ones, which have spurred dynamic nodes of geographic
interest and understanding (see pages 56-61).
Economics along with non-economic frameworks of human valuation furnish yet
another perspective on biodiversity (NRC, 1999). Indeed economic value is invari-
ably one of the reasons highlighted in accounts of the nature and importance of
biodiversity. Conventional economic approaches attribute 'raw material'-type value
to biodiversity as the growth stock of new sources of foods, pharmaceuticals, fi bers,
petroleum substitutes, and other products. 'Biofuels', 'bioenergy' and a mushroom-
ing array of 'bioproducts', generated through applications of biotechnology, are
widely recognised as derived from and dependent upon biodiversity. This expansive
arena of economic growth hinges on the contributions of biotechnology (see Section
IV below). Explicit environmental accounting has grown via the sophisticated sub-
fi elds of ecological and environmental economics, along with application in various
neoliberal policies. These approaches assign economic weight according to the valu-
ation of various ecosystem goods and services, such as ecosystem resilience and
carbon sequestration, that occur through the ecological functioning of biodiversity
(see Ehrlich and Levin, 1998; Costanza et al., 2007).
Non-economic human values are also widely assigned to biodiversity in relation
to human societies and cultures (NRC, 1999). Such values of biodiversity may
accrue through livelihood, ethical, and humanistic beliefs and practices (see Sections
IVand V below). These non-economic values have been widely documented in
diverse social and cultural settings. Such values are advocated as important coun-
terpoints needed to balance the potentially reductionist and strictly economistic or
utilitarian valuations of biodiversity (Nabhan, 1995). The 'biophilia hypothesis' also
belongs within the broad umbrella of non-economic valuations of biodiversity. It
attributes the value of biodiversity to human co-evolution with biodiversity-rich
nature and within the context of biodiversity-rich environments (Kellert and Wilson,
1993; Martin-Lopez et al., 2007).
Public environmental science, institutions, and governance approaches offer a
fourth perspective on biodiversity. Diverse organisations have acquired unprece-
dented importance as key institutional contexts for the management of biodiversity.
Indeed the theme gained much initial visibility and infl uence through interest and
