Environmental Science: Toward a Sustainable Future Richard T. Wright

1. Environmental Science: Toward a Sustainable FutureRichard T. Wright Chapter 10 Wild Species and Biodiversity PPT by Clark E. Adams

2. Wild Species and Biodiversity • The value of wild species • Saving wild species • Biodiversity and its decline • Protecting Biodiversity

3. Appreciating the Worth of Diversity • The worth ($) of plant and animal diversity in terms of goods and services • Factors that contribute to a reduction in plant and animal diversity • Understanding the “costs” of losing plant and animal diversity • Programs to protect biodiversity

4. Puffin Project: Seabird Restoration Project of the Audubon Society

5. The Value of Wild Species • Biological wealth • Two kinds of value • Sources for agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and animal husbandry • Sources for medicine • Recreational, aesthetic, and scientific value • Value for their own sake

6. Biological Wealth = $38 Trillion/Year • Gas, climate, and water regulation • Water supply • Erosion control • Soil formation • Pollination

7. Biological Wealth = $38 Trillion/Year • Biological control • Food production • Recreation • Raw materials • Nutrient cycling • Waste treatment

8. Two Kinds of Value • Instrumental: beneficial to humans • Sources for agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and animal husbandry • Recreational, aesthetic, and scientific value • Sources of medicine • Intrinsic: value for its own sake

9. Source for Agriculture: Wild or Cultivated? • Highly adaptable to changing environments • Have numerous traits for resistance • Lack genetic vigor

10. Source for Agriculture: Wild or Cultivated? • High degree of genetic diversity • Represents the genetic bank • Need highly controlled environmental conditions

11. Sources for Medicine: Vincristine

13. Sources of Medicine: Table 10-1 • Vincristine from rosy periwinkle cures leukemia. • Capoten from the venom of the Brazilian viper controls high blood pressure. • Taxol from the bark of the pacific yew used to treat ovarian, breast, and small-cell cancers.

14. Recreational, Aesthetic, and Scientific Value • Ecotourism: largest foreign exchange-generating enterprise in many developing countries • $104 billion spent on wildlife-related recreation • $31 billion spent to observe, feed, or photograph wildlife

15. Recreational, Aesthetic, and Scientific Value

16. Value for Their Own Sake • Spiritual: giving divine recognition to selected species • Religious: association between wild things and a creator • Cultural: animal rights, American Indians

17. Saving Wild Species • Game animals in the United States • Acts protecting endangered species

18. Past Wildlife Management Problems • Restoring the numbers of many game animals, e.g., deer, elk, turkey • Passing laws to control the collection and commercial exploitation of wildlife • Poaching and overhunting

19. Contemporary Wildlife Management Problems • Road-killed animals • Population explosion of urban wildlife • Lack of natural predators • Wildlife as vectors for certain diseases • Pet predation by coyotes • Changed societal attitudes towards animals

20. Acts Protecting Endangered Species • Lacey Act: forbids interstate commerce of illegally killed wildlife • Endangered Species Act (ESA): protects endangered and threatened species (Table 10-4) • Total endangered U.S. species = 987 (388 animals, 599 plants) • Threatened U.S. species = 276 (129 animals, 147 plants)

21. Strengths or Weaknesses of Endangered Species Act? • The need for official recognition • Control over commercial exploitation of endangered species • Government controls on development in critical habitats • Recovery programs • Habitat conservation plan (HCP)

22. Case Histories • Peregrine falcon • Whooping crane • Spotted owl • Klamath river and coho salmon

23. Biodiversity and Its Decline • The decline in biodiversity • Reasons for the decline • Consequences of losing biodiversity

25. The Status of U.S. Species

26. Causes of Animal Extinctions

27. Reasons for Biodiversity Decline • Habitat alterations • Conversions • Fragmentation • Simplification • Human population growth • Pollution (Fig. 10-14)

28. Reasons for Biodiversity Decline • Introduction of exotic species, e.g., brown tree snake in Guam • Overuse: combination of greed, ignorance, and desperation

29. Habitat Alterations Photo by C. E. Adams

30. Human Population Growth and Species Extinctions

31. Pollution: Exxon Valdez Oil Spill • March 24, 1989 • 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound Oil slick

32. Exotic Species: Brazilian Pepper Bush

33. Overuse • Harvest of 50 million songbirds for food

34. Overuse • Trafficking in wildlife and products derived from wild species – $10 billion/year • 90% decline in rhinos • 1.6 tons of tiger bones = 340 tigers • Parrot smuggling: 40 of 330 species face extinction

35. Consequences of Losing Biodiversity: The Plane Analogy • The whole plane is an ecosystem. • There are many different parts (species) in the jet plane ecosystem. • How does removal of one or more species affect ecosystem structure or function?

36. Protecting Biodiversity • International developments • Stewardship concerns

37. International Steps to Protect Biodiversity • “Red List of Threatened Species” • 11,167 species of plants and animals • Convention on trade in endangered species (CITES) • Focuses on trade in wildlife and wildlife parts • Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD)

38. International Steps to Protect Biodiversity • Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) • Stepping up war on invasive species • Access to genetic resources • Stem tide of deforestations • Formulating a strategic plan through 2010

39. International Steps to Protect Biodiversity • Convention on biological diversity • Focuses on conserving biological diversity worldwide • Does not yet have the support of the United States

40. Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund • Sponsors: World Bank, Conservation International, and the Global Environment Facility • Fund = $150 million for developing countries • Protect biodiversity “hotspots”

41. Biodiversity Hotspots 60% of the biodiversity is located on just 1.4% of the Earth’s land surface.

42. Stewardship Concerns • Managing and protecting something you DO NOT own. Involves: • Wisdom • Values

43. The Wisdom of Stewardship • Reforming policies that lead to declines in biodiversity • Addressing the needs of people whose livelihood is derived from exploiting wild species

44. The Wisdom of Stewardship • Practicing conservation at the landscape level • Promoting more research on biodiversity

45. The Values of Stewardship • Manage or mine the resource? • Human perceptions of their relationships to the natural world • Deep ecology: we are part of the Earth and not separate from it • Religious faiths

46. End of Chapter 10