Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Biodiversity Cons. and Threats
Biodiversity Cons. and Threats
Regulating
Cultural
Supporting
Services necessary for production of other ecosystem services
Soil formation
Nutrient cycling
Primary production
FORESTS
BENEFITS
Absorption of carbon dioxide, a
greenhouse gas
Wood and other forest products
Biodiversity: drugs from plants
IUCN Photo Library Jim Thorsell
FORESTS
Indicative costs if lost
$7 million Likely cost to plant enough trees to offset one
million tons of carbon emitted annually from a mediumsize coal-fired power plant.
$135 million Annual value of US and Canadian maple
syrup products. Pollution from midwestern power plants
threatens sugar maples in both countries.
$1.6 billion Annual Sales of Taxol, an anticancer agent
first dervied from the bark of Pacific yew trees.
GRASSLANDS
BENEFITS
Soil formation and
retention
Gene pool for
crossbreeding grains
Animal habitat
GRASSLANDS
Indicative costs if lost
$9 trillion Value today of 200 million tons of topsoil blown
off US Great Plains in one 1934 dust storm. Prairie had
been ploughed to plant wheat.
$14 million Annual value of Californias barley crop;
Ethiopian wild barley genes provide virus protection.
$256 million Kenyas annual tourism revenue. Black
rhinos, a major wildlife attraction, have been poached
nearly to extinction.
Source: members.aol.com/ MVNick/snature.htm
Biodiversity
includes wild
relatives of
domestic plants
and animals
Threatened Mammals
Threatened Turtles
Threatened Birds
Threatened Amphibians
Protected Areas in
IUCN Categories I through VI
Key Problems:
Land use change
2. Use
economic
incentives to
encourage
farmers to
conserve wild
biodiversity
5. Remove trade
barriers to
farmers in
developing
countries
9. Use market
instruments
to support agrobiodiversity