[新聞] A Sixth Global Mass Exctinction Has …

[NPLNT (Bruzi Geist)]

※ [本文轉錄自 IA 看板]

作者: NPLNT (Bruzi Geist) 看板: IA
標題: [新聞] A Sixth Global Mass Exctinction Has Begun
時間: Sat May 24 15:01:47 2008


What Would It Cost to Save Nature?(Part 2)

標題:A Sixth Global Mass Exctinction Has Begun


新聞來源:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,554982-2,00.html
                                 (需有正確連結)

By Philip Bethge, Rafaela von Bredow and Christian Schwagerl

Part 2: "A Sixth Global Mass Exctinction Has Begun"


To make matters worse, the rate of decline is formidable. A current UNEP
estimate concludes that species are becoming extinct 100 times faster today
than would normally occur as a result of evolution.

"A sixth global mass extinction has begun," says UNEP Executive Director
Steiner. The diversity of species has already been severely compromised five
times in the past in the wake of meteorite collisions, volcanic eruptions and
rising sea levels. But today it is the more than 6.6 billion people that are
destroying nature at an unprecedented pace. They hunt and fish at
uncontrolled rates. They transform more and more land into farmland to fill
their bellies. They chop down the last virgin forests to produce biofuel for
their automobiles. They pollute the water, the soil and the air with toxic
substances. And they drag species from one part of the earth to another --
with sometimes devastating consequences.

Ascribing a Monetary Value to Nature 

Man's footprint on the globe is growing inexorably. And Homo sapiens, the
supposedly perceptive human race, have failed miserably to secure the Earth's
biological diversity. But now a revolution is taking shape in the way we
think, as environmentalists and economists discover the marketplace of
nature. They are putting their heads together to translate the achievements
of mangroves and nightshade, whales, moors and rainforests into monetary
value. Under this new mindset, destroying nature will no longer be profitable
while protecting it will. Pavan Sukhdev, the director of the joint German-EU
study on biodiversity, considers this the obvious solution. It is now or
never, says Sukhdev, that "the economic weapon must shoot in the right
direction."

On a recent spring morning, the 48-year-old Indian pointed to the concrete
wasteland of Berlin's Alexanderplatz square. "That's how desolate the entire
earth will be if we don't succeed," says Sukhdev, who also heads the global
markets division at Deutsche Bank's Indian office in Mumbai. Ten years ago,
he says, a friend asked him the following question: "You're a banker. So tell
me, why are some things worth something while others are not?" While
searching for an answer to her question, he hit upon the idea of calculating
prices for forests, wetlands and the courses of rivers.

Sukhdev's calculations, ridiculed at first, have since become the driving
force behind the conservation revolution. Economists now perform detailed
calculations to reflect what diversity does for people. Bees, for instance,
are worth $2 to $8 billion (€1.3 to €5.2 billion) a year, because they
pollinate important crop plants worldwide. Reeds growing along riverbanks are
also considered valuable. Along the central part of Germany's Elbe River, for
example, they are responsible for €7.7 million ($11.9 million) in annual
savings, because they filter the water, thereby eliminating the need to build
additional sewage treatment plants.

On the coast of Pakistan's Beluchistan Province, one hectare (2.47 acres) of
intact mangrove forest produces the equivalent of about $2,200 (€1,420) in
annual income. The ecosystem is a breeding ground for economically attractive
fish species, as well as acting as a protective wall against flooding. Salt
marshes in Scotland are worth about €1,000 ($1,555) per hectare to the
region's mussel industry.

Tourists visiting Germany's Muritz National Park to marvel at sea eagles,
ospreys, cranes and red deer contribute €13 million ($20 million) in annual
revenue. In Britain, a team of researchers working with conservation
biologist Andrew Balmford has calculated that a global network of protected
areas could produce about $5 billion (€3.2 billion) in annual revenue. The
group's calculations reflected the reserves' economic benefits for tourism,
climate protection, nutrient cycles and the water supply.

If the destruction of natural habitats continues unabated, even the key to
the earth's future energy supply could go undiscovered. US geneticist Craig
Venter has collected thousands of samples of microorganisms living in
seawater during voyages on his yacht, the Sorcerer II. Venter hopes that the
samples will contain genetic sequences that could be used to produce fuels
for cars and airplanes in the future.

In 1997, American ecological economist Robert Costanza estimated the annual
value of the services nature provides for mankind at $33 trillion, a figure
that was 1.8 times the world GNP at the time.

A Shift in Thinking 

Despite their enormity, these numbers have been of little use to species and
ecosystems in the past, because few have been willing to pay money for
nature's assets. Indeed, the world's powerful corporations continue to treat
animals, plants, forests, rivers and wetlands as a free resource. But at
least some industries seem to be approaching an important watershed moment.

For instance, companies already earn $43 billion (€28 billion) in annual
revenues with plant-based natural remedies. The active agents in 10 of the
world's 25 most successful drugs were originally derived from fungi,
bacteria, plants and animals living in the wild. The precursors of aspirin
came from willow bark and meadowsweet. The purple foxglove plant is the
source of the agent in the heart drug digitoxin.

Companies spend billions searching for the next mega-drugs derived from
nature's diverse sources. But does nature get anything out of the bargain?
Initial models show that it can. In Costa Rica, for example, there is already
a tradition to the search for miracle drugs from the jungle. The Instituto
Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio) was founded in the capital San Jose in
1989. In the 1990s the pharmaceutical company Merck invested $4 million (€
2.6 million) in the research institute, which has since acquired a global
reputation. Merck executives pledged to donate 10 percent of the profits of
potential discoveries to the country, with part of the proceeds to be
earmarked for conservation.

Do Costa Rica's butterflies, forest plants and slime molds hold the key to
new drugs to fight malaria and cancer, or can they at least provide the
ingredients for new skin creams and anti-dandruff shampoos? World-renowned
researchers at INBio continue to seek answers to these questions, constantly
hunting for useful natural substances.

On a recent morning, for example, fungus specialist Jorge Blanco was
carefully scrutinizing the leaves of Monimiaceae siparuna, a plant that
resembles the laurel family. Using a scalpel, he cut apart the precious green
leaves and placed the pieces into dishes of culture medium. Soon fungi that
previously thrived only inside the leaves would sprout. To get the plant
Diego Vargas, a biologist working at INBio, spent two hours on the previous
day in an SUV, driving the winding roads in the Parque Nacional Braulio
Carrillo along the slopes of the Barva volcano.

Vargas, wearing a baseball cap, a white T-shirt and blue rubber gloves,
photographs plants in the virgin forest, then uses garden shears to snip off
the seed heads of various plants and carefully places them in bags. Peering
into the undergrowth, he finds Monimiaceae siparuna, a plant with tiny
yellowish blossoms. He twirls his garden shears like a cowboy wielding his
Colt, then deftly cuts off the seed heads: a small snip for Vargas, but could
it be a giant snip for mankind?

"Many of the fungi that live in the leaves of this plant have never been
studied, because they are so hard to isolate," says Vargas. "They may very
well produce many interesting substances with which we aren't even familiar
yet."

Since INBio was established in the late 1980s, its scientists have examined
thousands of insects in their quest for useful natural substances. Nowadays,
the high-tech equipment at the institute's special laboratory in Heredia, a
San Jose suburb, is used mainly to analyze plant extracts, microbes and fungi.

The great bio-boom has not materialized yet, prompting Merck and a few other
major investors to withdraw their funding. "The pharmaceutical companies no
longer want to pay for the long process that is needed to find promising
substances in nature," says Giselle Tamayo, technical coordinator of INBio’s
biodiversity prospecting division.


--
「只有在人們能夠自由地利用和享受知識帶來的好處時，新知識的發現才對他們有價值。
新發現對所有的人都有潛在的價值，但不是犧牲人們所有的現實價值為代價。無限發展的
『進步』不能給任何人帶來好處，那麼這『進步』就是一種恐怖的謬論。」

                                            Ayn Rand<The Virtue of Selfishness>

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※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
◆ From: 59.113.10.44
※ 編輯: NPLNT           來自: 59.113.10.44         (05/24 15:02)
推 swallow73:能夠把自然環境看似毫無經濟利益的東西估價看來是很值得
→ swallow73:尊敬的做法.不過傷腦筋的是,自然資源對生技產業和那些
→ swallow73:開採石油,鑽石的產業而言,恐怕價值上是不同的.
→ swallow73:恐怕鑽石,石油開採產業會派出最有力的游說專家和政治獻
→ swallow73:金讓政府向他們的利益靠壟吧.
→ NPLNT:所以我想希望有那種專業的保育公司來負責
→ NPLNT:而政府跟企業掛勾本身就是很糟糕的事 政府應該想辦法解決
→ thigefe:這是無解的矛盾,另外人民會潛意識希望政府和企業合作
→ thigefe:人民主要是向企業領錢而非政府,
→ ncyc:政府的角色對多數人來說不是給錢，而是課稅
→ thigefe:生技產業,會擔心當地地住民提出生物智產權一類的慨念
→ thigefe:從當地取的的生物樣本,必須先得到當地的授權
→ thigefe:以礦產企業來說,會著重於政府能否有效執行警察權
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