New study finds biodiversity conservation secures ecosystem services for people

Healthy ecosystems that provide people with essential natural goods and services often overlap with regions rich in biological diversity, underscoring that conserving one also protects the other, according to a new paper published by researchers from Conservation International (CI), the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

Titled "Global Conservation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services", the paper confirms the value of making biological diversity a priority for conservation efforts. It shows that more than 70 percent of the world’s highest priority areas for biodiversity conservation also contain significant value in ecosystem services such as fresh water, food, carbon storage, storm buffers and other natural resources that sustain human life and support social and economic development.

This paper clearly shows that in many places in the world, strategies targeted at conserving threatened biodiversity also help protect ecosystems, thereby improving human well-being and alleviating poverty. - Thomas M. Brooks, CI senior director for conservation synthesis, author

The researchers found that the value of ecosystem services in the 7 percent of the planet of greatest biodiversity conservation priority was more than double the global average. Overall, the annual value of the world’s ecosystem services is estimated at $33 trillion, or greater than the gross national product of all nations combined.

These highly valuable ecosystem services can be grouped into five broad categories, all present in biodiversity hotspots that require conservation:

1. Provisioning services such as foods (including seafood and game) and spices, precursors to pharmaceutical and industrial products, energy from biomass fuels and hydropower
   
2. Regulating services such as carbon sequestration and climate regulation, waste decomposition and detoxification, nutrient dispersal and cycling
3. Supporting services like the purification of water and air, crop pollination and seed dispersal, pest and disease control
4. Cultural services such as cultural, intellectual and spiritual inspiration, recreational experiences (including ecotourism), or scientific discovery
5. Preserving services such as genetic and species diversity for future use, accounting for uncertainty or the protection of options

Sadly, no formal market mechanism exists with which to bank in on these ecosystems services, which is why many of the biodiversity hotspots found in service-rich regions are threatened by common activities that allow communities to make a more direct and secure income from the market-as-we-know-it, such as farming, cattle ranching or extracting timber - activities that often negatively impact both ecosystems services and biodiversity. Likewise, large agro-industrial interests (logging, palm oil) can not be stopped from engaging in damaging practises as long as habitat destruction is merely seen as an 'externality'.

However, one of these ecosystem services, namely the fact that intact forests store carbon dioxide, might soon be turned into a genuine economic opportunity. As climate scientists and government delegates are meeting in Bali to discuss a new framework for ways to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, they are looking into schemes to compensate communities and nations for reducing deforestation or for avoiding it alltogether. Such schemes are still mired with difficulties, but if these can be overcome, incomes from carbon credits for forest conservation could offer a very good deal for forest-rich nations such as Congo and Brazil.

In short, making ecosystem services bankable in a more formal way can help in protecting biodiversity hotspots. The new study by the environmental economists and conservationists, published in the November 2007 issue of BioScience magazine, further suggest that the opposite is true as well: conservation strategies that protect biological diversity simultaneously protect ecosystem services. By coupling both and by focusing on overlaps, they suggest the efficiency of dollars and efforts spent on conservation can be increased. The paper identifies tropical forests as places of particularly high overlap of priorities because of their biological diversity and ecosystem services essential to the welfare of many of the world’s 1 billion people living in extreme poverty:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: conservation :: biodiversity :: deforestation :: ecosystem services :: enviromental economics ::

Significantly, there are many opportunities for conserving both species and ecosystem services together, especially in the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin, Madagascar, Borneo and New Guinea. Protecting these intact forests is critical to reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries while also supporting the livelihoods of traditional and indigenous peoples.

With climate change recognized as the greatest environmental threat facing the planet, the study provides a timely reminder that investments to maintain healthy ecosystems and their restorative powers is cost effective for biodiversity, the livelihoods of local people and economic development, and as a way to protect the CO2 stored in these areas from release.

Protecting intact tropical forests is critical for reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries. We need to conserve these forests for the benefit of local populations and the world as a whole. - Will R. Turner, CI ecologist, author

Restoring destroyed forests also is necessary to help damaged habitat recover, ensure the persistence of species, and restore critical ecosystem services, particularly in regions with large human populations such as Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and much of Southeast Asia.

Conservation International (CI) applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth’s richest regions of plant and animal diversity and demonstrate that human societies can live harmoniously with nature. Founded in 1987, CI works in more than 40 countries on four continents to help people find economic alternatives without harming their natural environments.

Picture: swamp forest in the Congo Basin: both biodiversity hotspot and ecosystem providing valuable ecosystem services to indigenous communities. Credit: National Geographic.

References:
Will R. Turner, et. al., "Global Conservation of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services", BioScience, Volume 57, Issue 10 (November 2007), pp. 868–873.

Mongabay: Carbon credits for forest conservation concept faces challenges - November 27, 2007.