{"id":45321,"date":"2020-11-22T05:52:11","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T10:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=45321"},"modified":"2020-11-27T14:40:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T19:40:15","slug":"why-would-economy-need-biodiversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2020\/11\/22\/why-would-economy-need-biodiversity\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Would the Economy Need Biodiversity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

And What Grassplots, Amur Leopard, and Mold Have in Common<\/strong>

It is estimated that the extinction of the\u00a0Amur leopard resulted in $722\u00a0million in damage to the Russian economy.<\/blockquote><\/figure>What is biodiversity for? Some don\u2019t need that question answered: you just adopt a\u00a0philosopher\u2019s perspective, and everything becomes clear\u2014all living things have the right to\u00a0dwell on the planet. For others, the question is confusing. Those trying to find a\u00a0quantitative answer to this question include not only biologists, but also economists\u2014the latter may calculate the\u00a0\u201cprice of ecosystem services\u201d rendered to humankind by nature. If you crash a\u00a0car, everyone understands what material damage will be suffered and by whom. And what if a\u00a0forest is cut down? Or a\u00a0grassplot is converted into a\u00a0parking lot? Were the\u00a0last Amur leopard to\u00a0die somewhere in the mountains, would the economy be affected at all? In 2008, the answer was found in the Russian State University of Management, where for calculations they used a\u00a0formula by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: the disappearance of the\u00a0last 40, to that day, individuals of that leopard species on the planet would have equaled $722\u00a0million in damage to the Russian economy.<\/p>\n

Megalopolises are oftentimes referred to as concrete jungle. And it is true that living in a\u00a0city doesn\u2019t overturn laws of biology. Somewhere in distant mountains, the Amur leopard is dying out because of random deforestation, fragmentation and reduction of its habitat, and inbreeding, ie, mating of individuals closely related by ancestry due to\u00a0their population being too small. The\u00a0very same adverse factors also affect city-dwelling populations of plant and animal species in our vicinity. A\u00a0new highway cuts through a\u00a0forest? Animals living there will most probably not be able to leave their respective resulting plots. And the stronger the fragmentation, the\u00a0faster the local population will go into decline. The only bit of wasteland between the\u00a0houses has been repurposed into a\u00a0parking lot? Yet another grassplot has been paved? That means not only soil animals, many plants, and insects have died, but, to make matters worse, butterflies and bees in adjacent territories have been deprived of the means to\u00a0populate broader areas, as they could have used that plot as a\u00a0place to\u00a0stop, rest, and refuel on some food.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Cherished Meadow, Moscow, Russia, 2020. Photo: Alexey Denisov.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For example, many bees are known to\u00a0be only capable of flying no farther than 1.5\u20132.0\u00a0kilometers. \u201cSo what?\u201d you may ask. In order to\u00a0survive, some bees only need one single plant. For example, Moscow\u2019s red bartsia bee (<\/em>Melitta\u00a0<\/em>tricincta<\/em>) <\/em>only feeds on red bartsia. What would become of humankind if that red bartsia bee were to\u00a0disappear? Regretably, it can only be found out by experience. And we may not like that experience.<\/p>\n

For instance, last year alone, according to\u00a0the\u00a0estimates by the National Beekeepers and Bee Product Processors Association, the\u00a0decrease in the population of one single species\u2014domesticated Western honey bee\u2014cost Russia over 1\u00a0trillion roubles (around $13\u00a0billion) in losses. And that estimate doesn\u2019t include losses resulting from wild bees dying out\u2014the\u00a0ones not counted by beekeepers. According to\u00a0the\u00a0UN, the\u00a0world relies on pollination of crops by bees to\u00a0produce almost a\u00a0third of its food worth an\u00a0estimate <\/a>of $380\u00a0billion.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another example illustrating the Butterfly Effect, which is a story dating back to\u00a0the\u00a0mid-20th<\/sup>\u00a0century: two years after China declared a\u00a0war on sparrows for allegedly destroying field crops, the resulting\u00a0major pest outbreak and the deterioration of crops that followed were of such a\u00a0scale that around 10 to\u00a030\u00a0million people died <\/a>of hunger.<\/p>\n

It would be rather na\u00efve of us to\u00a0believe that any damage can be estimated in advance. Or\u00a0that\u2014should the ecosystem lose even one of its elements\u2014the\u00a0course of events can be foreseen. Humankind hardly knows anything about the planet it lives on, but succeeds in taking advantage of discoveries that happen from time to\u00a0time. There was a\u00a0time when we were in the\u00a0dark about the\u00a0properties of the\u00a0mold fungus Penicillium that we have to\u00a0thank for penicillin, of the\u00a0willow bark that gave rise <\/a>to\u00a0aspirin, and of the\u00a0rice hulls from which vitamin B1 was synthesized. I\u00a0believe it will be easy enough to\u00a0evaluate the\u00a0economic effect brought about by those discoveries to the world\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, it\u2019s impossible to\u00a0calculate the\u00a0forgone benefit resulting from the\u00a0loss of those species whose properties will forever remain unknown to\u00a0us\u2014with biodiversity declining at a\u00a0dramatic pace. Scientists estimate, for example, that every year the\u00a0total insect biomass decreases <\/a>by 2.5 percent. And that estimate doesn\u2019t take stock of the\u00a0plants, fungi, microorganisms, and other living things\u2014many of which the\u00a0humankind never knew\u2014that, potentially, could have come in handy for people.<\/p>\n

For example, back in 1990s, when many Moscow\u2019s grassplots were still covered with knee-high grasses, and city parks had some decent forests and meadows, fragmentation already prevented even mid-sized animals, such as hare or stoat, from establishing viable populations there, while small (and well-studied) animals, such as day butterfly, had lost up to a\u00a0third of species composition by 2001, when Moscow Red Book\u2019s first edition was published. But the\u00a0dying out of a\u00a0third of butterflies also means that about a\u00a0third of less well-studied insects followed suit: pollinators, entomophagous insects, soil formers, dead wood destructors, etc. By the time Moscow Red Book\u2019s second edition was published in 2011, that assumption had proved true for bumblebees and dragonflies.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, about 70% of species remained and continued performing their functions. Due to that, data obtained from forest pathology research showed that large natural expanses\u2014contributing the most to maintaining a\u00a0normal environmental situation in the\u00a0city\u2014are in a\u00a0relatively good condition.<\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Liudmila Volkova, Biodiversity Conservation Center\u2019s expert and Moscow Red Book\u2019s scientific editor, a\u00a050 percent \u201cthreshold\u201d of Moscow\u2019s insect survivability will be the\u00a0limit, meaning another 20\u201330 percent of entomofauna species will have died out\u2014because of excessively frequent grass-cutting, mass park (and even special protection natural areas) beautification, and a\u00a0sheer extensive \u201csealing-off\u201d of\u00a0soil in the city. And it\u2019s from then on that the\u00a0humankind will have to\u00a0compensate for the\u00a0undermined capability of green areas for\u00a0self-regulation and to\u00a0resort to\u00a0insecticides in order to\u00a0control pest population in city parks, as populations and diversity of entomophagous invertebrates (e.g.\u00a0ichneumonoidea, parasites, predators) and songbirds will have decreased.<\/p>\n

An\u00a0alternative solution would be to\u00a0use nature\u2019s \u201cecosystem services\u201d rather than fight it. Thus, its restorative influence on the\u00a0human body was tested in practice more than once. As far back as in 1981, scientists from Sweden\u2019s Chalmers University of Technology proved that patients assigned to\u00a0rooms with windows looking out on a\u00a0natural setting recovered faster than those in rooms with window views of a\u00a0building. Similar findings have been made for children: researchers Taylor and Kuo noticed <\/a>that children with attention deficits showed improved concentration results after a\u00a020-minute walk in the\u00a0park.<\/p>\n

So why do we need biodiversity? To eat, heal, stay healthy, take rest, save money, and earn money. Do those arguments suffice to\u00a0protect a\u00a0grassplot, a\u00a0wasteland, or a\u00a0forest? To\u00a0finally shift our perspective from \u201cwhat is it that nature gives us\u201d to\u00a0the\u00a0one where the only answer begs itself, and namely \u201cbecause all living things have the right to\u00a0dwell on the planet\u201d?<\/p>\n

Nadya Kiyatkina<\/strong>
\nMoscow<\/p>\n

On The Nature of Cities<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And What Grassplots, Amur Leopard, and Mold Have in CommonWhat is biodiversity for? Some don\u2019t need that question answered: you just adopt a\u00a0philosopher\u2019s perspective, and everything becomes clear\u2014all living things have the right to\u00a0dwell on the planet. For others, the question is confusing. Those trying to find a\u00a0quantitative answer to this question include not only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":797,"featured_media":45322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,938,297],"tags":[617,401,1246,166,91,1247,1245],"coauthors":[1067],"class_list":["post-45321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-europe","category-essay-science-and-tools","tag-bees","tag-biodiversity","tag-bioeconomy","tag-ecocities","tag-economics","tag-meadows","tag-native-species"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/797"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45321"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}