Unit-III

Biodiversity & Conservation

By - Dr. Shailja Raje

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 Importance of biodiversity and why it should be conserved is already discussed

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 Overexploitation threatening living species
There’s enough on this planet for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed.

Overexploitation

Exploitation of
(removal of individuals
or biomass from) a
natural population at a
rate greater than the
population is able to
match with its own
recruitment, thus
tending to drive the
population towards
extinction.
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• Overexploitation has become the second most important threat to the survival of the
world’s birds, mammals, and plants.

• Many of these species are threatened by subsistence hunting in tropical regions, though
others are also threatened in temperate and arctic regions by hunting, fishing, and other
forms of exploitation.

• Exploitation is also the third most important driver of freshwater fish extinction events,
behind the effects of habitat loss and introduced species.

• Sustained overharvesting can lead to the destruction of the resource, and is one of the five
main activities – along with pollution, introduced species, habitat fragmentation, and
habitat destruction – that threaten global biodiversity today.

• Exponential increase in human population, expanding markets, and increasing demand,

combined with improved access and techniques for capture, are causing the exploitation of
many species beyond sustainable levels.

• Ultimately, overexploitation can lead to resource depletion and put a number of

threatened and endangered species at risk for extinction.
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• Overharvesting can lead to resource destruction, including extinction at the population
level and even extinction of whole species.

• Depleting the numbers or amount of certain resources can also change their quality; for
example, the overharvesting of footstool palm (a wild palm tree found in Southeast Asia,
the leaves of which are used for thatching and food wrapping) has resulted in its leaf size
becoming smaller.

• Overharvesting not only threatens the resource being harvested, but can directly impact
humans as well – for example by decreasing the biodiversity necessary for medicinal
resources. A significant proportion of drugs and medicines are natural products which are
derived, directly or indirectly, from biological sources. However, unregulated and
inappropriate harvesting could potentially lead to overexploitation, ecosystem degradation,
and loss of biodiversity; further, it can negatively impact the rights of the communities and
states from which the resources are taken.

• Climate change threatens 19% of globally threatened and near-threatened species –

including Australia’s critically endangered mountain pygmy possum and the southern
corroboree frog. It’s a serious conservation issue.
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• Hunting and gathering is a threat to more than 1,600 species, including large carnivores
like tigers and snow leopards.
• History might judge the Paris climate agreement to be a watershed for all humanity. If
nations succeed in halting runaway climate change, this will have enormous positive
implications for life on Earth.

• Yet as the world applauds a momentous shift toward carbon neutrality and hope for
species threatened by climate change, we can’t ignore the even bigger threats to the
world’s wildlife and ecosystems.

• According to study, published in Nature, the largest current hazards to biodiversity are
overexploitation and agriculture.
• Unsustainable logging is driving the decline of more than 4,000 species, such as Australia’s
Leadbeater’s possum, while more than 1,000 species, including southern bluefin tuna, are
losing out to excessive fishing pressure.

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• Threats are likely to change in the future. Climate change, for example, will become increasingly
problematic for many species in coming decades.

• Moreover, threats to biodiversity rarely operate in isolation. More than 80% of the species we
assessed are facing more than one major threat.

• Through threat interactions, smaller threats can indirectly drive extinction risk. Roads and energy
production, for example, are known to facilitate the emergence of overexploitation, land modification
and habitat loss.

But until we have a better understanding of how threats interact, a pragmatic course of action is to limit
those impacts that are currently harming the most species.

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Getting it right

• Overexploitation and agriculture demand a variety of conservation approaches. Traditional

approaches, such as well-placed protected areas and the enforcement of hunting, logging and fishing
regulations, remain the strongest defense against the ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers.

• Achieving a truly effective protected area network is impossible, however, when governments insist
on relegating protected areas to “residual” places – those with least promise for commercial uses.

• Reducing impacts from overexploitation of forests and fish is also futile unless industries that employ
clear fell logging and illegal fishing vessels transition to more environmentally sustainable practices.

• Just as critical as traditional approaches are incentives for hunters, fishers and farmers to conserve
threatened species outside designated conservation areas.
• By ensuring that major threats that occur today (overexploitation, agriculture and so on) do not
compromise ecosystems tomorrow, we can help to ameliorate the challenges presented by
impending climate change.

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• For nations like Australia, our study shows there is a growing mismatch in environmental policy and
the outcomes for biodiversity. Environmental programs such as the once well-funded National
Reserve System Strategy and Biodiversity Fund were important in that they helped conserve wildlife
on private and public land, and were fundamental to defeating the biggest, prevailing threats to
Australia’s biodiversity. But these programs either do not exist anymore or have little funding to
support them at state and federal levels.

• On top of this, land-clearing – without doubt one of the largest threats to biodiversity across the
country – is on the increase because laws have been repealed across the country. Any benefits
accrued by previous good environmental programs are being eroded.

• If we are to seriously tackle the largest threats to biodiversity in Australia, we need to recognize the
biggest threats. This means efforts to reduce threats from agriculture and overexploitation of forests
and fish must include durable environmental regulation.

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 International Trade
• Trade has always been considered an engine for development.

• After the Second World War a special stimulus was intended to be given to international
trade by establishing an international organization responsible for regulating and
promoting trade.

• When the Bretton Woods Institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund) were
created, this interest resulted in a proposal to create an International Trade Organization
(ITO) as well.

• International trade has grown in a vertiginous way in the last 50 years, at a much faster
pace than the growth of world production.

• However, not everyone has received the benefits in the same way, because the gap
between rich and poor countries has been growing wider.

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• This is why there was a commitment in the Doha Ministerial to make greater efforts to
extend the benefits of trade to the poorest countries. And likewise, these inequalities do
not only show up among countries, but also within a country itself, creating poverty and
social inequalities inside of the country.

• This is why transparency, participation and information processes are core issues in the
search for equity.

• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is based on the principle that trade promotes
economic development, and its task is to promote trade based on four main principles.

• In general, the first two principles, national treatment and most favored nation, refer to
non-discrimination; tariff consolidation refers to transparency; and progressive tariff
reductions refer to the promotion of trade.

• The WTO is a forum where member nations continuously negotiate the exchange of trade
concessions whilst the ITO was set up to regulate trade.

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 World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the only international organisation
dealing with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is
to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Established: 1 January 1995
Functions:
• Administering WTO trade agreements
• Forum for trade negotiations
• Handling trade disputes
• Monitoring national trade policies
• Technical assistance and training for developing countries
• Cooperation with other international organizations

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Principles.
1. Trade without Discrimination:
2. Free Trade: Gradually, Through Negotiation:
3. Predictability: Through Binding and Transparency:
4. Promoting Fair Competition:
5. Encouraging Development and Economic Reform:

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Biodiversity and International Trade
• International trade is linked to biodiversity losses through direct impact of transport and
the induced pollution and introduction of pathogens and invasive species.
• It is also linked more indirectly to global biodiversity losses through habitat changes,
overexploitation and other forms of pollution.
• Lenzen et al (2012) find that at the global level 30 % of global species threats are due to
international trade

 Impacts of trade on biodiversity

• Figures provided by IPBES (2019) show clearly that some of the drivers of ecosystem
degradation involve consumption elsewhere of food, minerals or biomass products in
particular. For example, over three decades, global exports of food have risen tenfold. This
has been driven by a demand for food, linked to population growth as well as income
growth in some emerging countries, but also by an international transfer of production
with the emergence of transition countries as key suppliers of food products. This has
generated direct impacts through transport and transfer of parasites and invasive species,
as well as indirect impacts through changes in prices induced by foreign demand.
 Transport
• This has resulted in a dramatic surge in related pollution and habitat perturbations, with
negative consequences on biodiversity.
• All the emissions caused by transport have a significant effect on biodiversity. 14
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• Black carbon emitted by ships covers vegetation as well as icecaps, which melt because of
albedo, modifying water supply in large areas such as north-east America and the
Himalayas.
• Black carbon as well as other large particles also carry other (smaller) polluting particles,
and potentially pathogens such as spores or viruses. The impact on vegetation is
considerable.
• Sulphur dioxide results in acid rain which has caused collapse of trees in large forest areas.
• The impact of NOx and ozone on aquatic insects that are the basis of the food chain, and
on vegetation is considerable: ozone pollution have been measured as reducing wheat and
forest yields by amounts that reach 60%.

 Alien pests and invasive species

• International trade has a considerable direct impact on biodiversity through the
introduction of pathogens, pests and invasive species.
• The Global Invasive Species Database documents considerable ecosystem damage by 118
major invasive species that have been accidentally released by human trade and transport.
• The main vectors include transport of contaminated goods, plants, animals; the timber
trade, and hitchhiking species in planes, in ships, and in machinery, luggage, ballast water,
vehicles, etc.
• In parallel, by 2013, 1 369 marine non-indigenous species had been reported from
European seas. 15
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• Recently, it is likely that it is commercial trade that resulted in the introduction of
pathogens into the EU, pests such as the olive tree bacteria (Xylella fastidiosa) and viruses
such as the Tomato brown rugose virus. The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina), which kills the
local bee population, has probably been introduced in the EU in 2006 in terracotta bonsai
pots from China to France.

 Trade in threatened or overexploited species

• International trade in wildlife is a major threat to biodiversity.
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) intends to reduce
trade in endangered species.

 Trade has also indirect impacts on environment.

• Some of them are unambiguously negative, such as the ‘scale effect’ (increased
production).
• The ‘composition’ effect (trade liberalization can lead to a change in the pattern of
production and consumption of particular goods, according to comparative advantages).
• The ‘technique’ effect have a more ambiguous impact on the environment.
• For instance, in the presence of trade, resource allocation can be more efficient than in a
situation without international trade, and exports may lead to technical change and
composition effects that offset some of the environmental degradation induced by the
scale effect. 16
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• The question for this Forum is, to what extent do international trade constitute an obstacle
to the preservation and development of biodiversity?
• Biodiversity has many byproducts and externalities, each one affected in a different way by
international trade regulations.
• For example, the intimate connection between biodiversity and the pharmaceutical sector
is strongly regulated by the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS), the WTO, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
• Biodiversity is also associated with biotechnology, and from this point of view it is
governed by the Biosecurity Protocol of Cartagena.
• One could also focus on biodiversity from the point of view of technology transfer, and
again from this aspect it would be affected by TRIPS and related to the topic of investment.
There are no doubt many other relationships between biodiversity and trade.

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 Animals threatened by International trade
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora
(CITES) entered into force in 1975 and over 180 countries, or Parties, have signed up,
committing to protect over 35,000 animal and plant species from unsustainable or illegal
international trade.
• Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does
not threaten the survival of the species from extinction by requiring government permits
for international trade in threatened wildlife and wildlife products.
• CITES utilizes appendices to list animal and plant species that are vulnerable by virtue of
their international trade.

CITES Appendices:
• The species covered by CITES are listed in three Appendices, I, II and III, which offer varying
degrees of protection, and trade is regulated by means of a permitting system.
Appendix I:
• It lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants.
• They are threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens
of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial, for instance for
scientific research.
• E.g.- gorillas, sea turtles, most lady slipper orchids, and giant pandas.
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Appendix II:
• It lists species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but that may
become so unless trade is closely controlled.
• International trade in specimens of Appendix-II species may be authorized by the granting
of an export permit or re-export certificate.
• No import permit is necessary for these species under CITES (although a permit is needed
in some countries that have taken stricter measures than CITES requires)
• E.g.- paddlefish, lions, American alligators, mahogany and many corals.

Appendix III:
• It is a list of species included at the request of a Party that already regulates trade in the
species and that needs the cooperation of other countries to prevent unsustainable or
illegal exploitation.
• International trade in specimens of species listed in this Appendix is allowed only on
presentation of the appropriate permits or certificates.
• E.g.- map turtles, walruses and Cape stag beetles.

Species may be added to or removed from Appendix I and II, or moved between them, only
by the Conference of the Parties.

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 Problems in Controlling International Trade
Good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good government

• In smooth functioning of CITES there come several obstacle which will affect
conservation of biodiversity from international trade.
• These problems can be categorized as (Enforcement, Reservations and Illegal Trade).

Enforcement
• The US Endangered Species Act (ESA) contains specific procedures for violations of CITES,
as well as provisions for civil and criminal penalties for violation of the Act itself.
• The enforcement provisions of the ESA apply to CITES violations as well as to violations of
the Act itself. E.g.- by vagueness of terms, Split-Listing of Species.
• Vagueness of terms: Along with the fact that there are no actual enforcement provisions
included in CITES, perhaps the most criticized aspect of the Treaty is the vagueness of its
language." This not only makes it difficult to interpret on an international plane, but also
causes problems with its implementation and enforcement domestically.
• E.g.- historically CITES was interpreted as governing trade in raw ivory, but not in worked ivory."
Furthermore, there was no provision in CITES requiring that country of origin be declared when a
party imported worked ivory, nor did the FWS have such a requirement for worked ivory imported
into the United States. As a result, it was impossible to know whether the ivory came from a country
that, at the time, was legally exporting the ivory, or whether the ivory was from an illegal source.21
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Split-Listing of Species: Split-listing permits different populations of the same species to be
placed in different appendices depending on the status of the relevant population in a given
country.
• Thus it creates a problem in proper enforcement. Thus Vagueness of terms and Split-Listing
of Species should be avoided.

Reservations
• CITES permits parties to enter "reservations" against the listing.
• If only one party were to enter a reservation the consequences would not serious but in
practice several parties tend to make "multiple reservations" to the same species. If those
parties contain a significant proportion and demand for a species or related product it
greatly reduces the effect of trade restrictions. This occurred with the saltwater crocodile
when in 1979, West Germany and Italy each entered reservations despite accounting
jointly 60 per cent of the trade in that species. The economic incentive for trade poaching
in the developing South American crocodile-producing States thus continued despite the
species being listed as endangered.
• There should be removal or at least the amendment of the provisions allowing
reservations, possibly by placing a maximum limit on the number of reservations each
party can make.

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Illegal Trade
• Over the years illegal wildlife trade has emerged as a form of Organised Transnational
Crime that has threatened the existence of many wild species across the globe.
• It is driven by high profit margins and, in many cases, the high prices paid for rare species.
Vulnerable wild animals are pushed further to the edge of extinction when nature can't
replenish their stocks to keep up with the rate of human consumption.
• When criminal actors trade in endangered species, they weaken entire ecosystems and
they threaten essential links of the world's biological diversity.
• Biodiversity loss is one of the greatest global threats in our time, and it also means a
narrower genetic pool and therefore less resilience to resist diseases of any kind. 

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 Free Trade & the Environment
• Even though the relationship between trade and the environment seems obvious, it has
only recently been an issue in the field of trade negotiations.
• After having long been discussed, it has become part of the Doha trade negotiation
agenda. The important consequences it brings for trade made the topic part of a
considerable number of regional and bilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA, CAFTA,
Chile-Canada, Chile-United States, United States-Australia, Canada-Central America, United
States, Jordan, United States-Singapore, and the European Union among its members.
• During the last few years different groups have established different kinds of negative or
positive associations with respect to this relation between trade and environment.
• Some groups say that the impacts of trade on environment are negative due to the
material basis of trade, which grows and inevitably increases the pressure on ecosystems,
affecting the use of natural resources by demanding more inputs.

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Kind of Impacts
Among the main impacts that can be established between trade and environment, the following are very
important:
• Impact of scale refers to the growth of productive activity, the kind of growth there is, and the impacts
it has, e.g., more extensive land use, greater use of particular natural resources, larger amounts of
disposed wastes.
• The technological impact refers to the kind of technology promoted, particularly whether it is more
polluting or not. An example of this would be certain non-traditional products in the agricultural sector,
such as flowers and watermelons, which tend to utilize technologies that use larger quantities of
agrochemical substances.
• Geographical impact refers to the place where the new production will be located: whether it is within
rural or urban areas, and what exactly will be the environmental consequences of this.
• The product impact refers to the features of the product itself. Is it more contaminating or not?
• The composition effect refers to the changes that could be made in the productive sectors as a result
of the growth of trade. For example, if the service, agricultural or industrial sector grows, what would be
the environmental impacts of each specific kind of change in the composition of the economy?

As noted above, despite the influence of other factors, in the long run the nature of each of these
impacts will depend on the regulations and institutional capacity of the country

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 Free Trade & Conservation
CITES

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 Common patterns of Overexploitation
Or
Types of Overexploitation

• Until recently, human populations harvested resources in limited quantities. Today, new methods of
harvest and capture contribute to overharvesting and overexploitation. Continued overexploitation
can lead to the destruction of the resource.
• Overharvesting stems from several factors, including an exponential increase in the human
population, expanding markets, increasing demand, and improved access and techniques for capture.
• Overharvesting natural resources for extended periods of time depletes these resources until they
cannot recover within a short period of time; some may never recover.
• Overharvesting is one of five primary activities threatening global biodiversity; others include
pollution, introduced species, habitat fragmentation, and habitat destruction.
• Aquatic species are especially threatened by overharvesting, due to a situation known as the tragedy
of the commons.

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Tragedy of the commons
• Overharvesting is a serious threat to many species, especially aquatic ones.
• Common resources – or resources that are shared, such as fisheries – are subject to an economic
pressure known as “the tragedy of the commons,” in which essentially no harvester has a motivation
to exercise restraint in harvesting from a certain area, because that area is not owned by that
harvester.
• The natural outcome of harvesting common resources is their overexploitation.
• For example, most fisheries are managed as a common resource even when the fishing territory lies
within a country’s territorial waters; because of this, fishers have very little motivation to limit their
harvesting, and in fact technology gives fishers the ability to overfish. In a few fisheries, the biological
growth of the resource is less than the potential growth of the profits made from fishing if that time
and money were invested elsewhere. In these cases (for example, whales) economic forces will
always drive toward fishing the population to extinction.

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Cascade Effects
• Overexploitation of species can also result in cascade effects, particularly if a habitat loses
its apex predator. Because of the loss of the top predator, a dramatic increase in their prey
species can occur. In turn, the unchecked prey can then overexploit their own food
resources until population numbers dwindle, possibly to the point of extinction.
• For example – if lion or tiger (top predators) is not there in a forest -------increase in
number of herbivores---------too much consumption of plants and herb--------extinction of
some plant species due to overexploitation.
• Overharvesting fisheries is an especially salient problem because of a situation termed the
tragedy of the commons. In this situation, fishers have no real incentive to practice
restraint when harvesting fish because they do not own the fisheries.
• Many of the best-known impacts of exploitation on populations involve cases of direct
targeting, whereby hunting, fishing, logging, and related activities are selective, aimed at a
particular species.

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Fisheries
• In wild fisheries, overexploitation or overfishing occurs when a fish stock has been fished down
"below the size that, on average, would support the long-term maximum sustainable yield of the
fishery".
• About 25% of world fisheries are now overexploited to the point where their current biomass is less
than the level that maximizes their sustainable yield.
• These depleted fisheries can often recover if fishing pressure is reduced until the stock biomass
returns to the optimal biomass. At this point, harvesting can be resumed near the maximum
sustainable yield.
• The tragedy of the commons can be avoided within the context of fisheries if fishing effort and
practices are regulated appropriately by fisheries management.
• One effective approach may be assigning some measure of ownership in the form of individual
transferable quotas (ITQs) to fishermen. In 2008, a large scale study of fisheries that used ITQs, and
ones that did not, provided strong evidence that ITQs help prevent collapses and restore fisheries
that appear to be in decline.

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Water resources

Overexploitation of groundwater from an aquifer

can result in a peak water curve

What is Hubbert's Peak:

Hubbert's peak theory is the idea that, because oil production is a non-renewable resource, global crude
oil production will eventually peak and then go into terminal decline following a roughly bell-shaped
curve.

Same is happening with water because of overexploitation.

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• Water resources, such as lakes and aquifers, are usually renewable resources which naturally
recharge.
• Overexploitation occurs if a water resource, such as the Ogallala Aquifer, is mined or extracted at a
rate that exceeds the recharge rate, that is, at a rate that exceeds the practical sustained yield.
• An aquifer which has been overexploited is said to be over drafted or depleted.
• Forests enhance the recharge of aquifers in some locales, although generally forests are a major
source of aquifer depletion.
• Depleted aquifers can become polluted with contaminants such as nitrates, or permanently damaged
through subsidence or through saline intrusion from the ocean.
• A modified Hubbert curve applies to any resource that can be harvested faster than it can be
replaced.
• Though Hubbert's original analysis did not apply to renewable resources, their overexploitation can
result in a Hubbert-like peak. This has led to the concept of peak water.

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Forests resources
• Forests are overexploited when they are logged at a rate faster than reforestation takes place.
• Reforestation competes with other land uses such as food production, livestock grazing, and living
space for further economic growth.
• Historically utilization of forest products, including timber and fuel wood, have played a key role in
human societies, comparable to the roles of water and cultivable land. Short-term economic gains
made by conversion of forest to agriculture, or overexploitation of wood products, typically leads to
loss of long-term income and long term biological productivity.
• West Africa, Madagascar, Southeast Asia and many other regions have experienced lower revenue
because of overexploitation and the consequent declining timber harvests.

Endangered species
• Overexploitation threatens one-third of endangered vertebrates, as well as other groups.
• Island endemic populations are more prone to extinction from overexploitation, as they often exist at
low densities with reduced reproductive rates.
• A good example of this are island snails, such as the Hawaiian Achatinella and the French Polynesian
Partula. Achatinelline snails have 15 species listed as extinct and 24 critically endangered while 60
species of partulidae are considered extinct with 14 listed as critically endangered.
• As another example, when the humble hedgehog was introduced to the Scottish island of Uist, the
population greatly expanded and took to consuming and overexploiting shorebird eggs, with drastic
consequences for their breeding success. Twelve species of avifauna are affected, with some species
numbers being reduced by 39%.
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