BIO 1011

Monash ID: 21305382

Title: Three Major Reasons for Conserving Biodiversity

Background and scope

What is biodiversity? There are many definitions of it due to the different understandings.
McAllister (1991) stated in Gaston (2004), biodiversity is the whole planet which contains the
genetic, taxonomic, and ecosystem variety in living organisms of a given area, environment and
ecosystem. While Fiedler and Jain (1992) cited in Gaston and Spicer (2004), biodiversity is a
biological diversity that encompasses the range of variety and variability of ecosystem, species,
and landscape as well as intraspecific (genetic) levels of diversity. From all of the opinions and
definitions, biodiversity is prevalently defined as the variety of life (Gaston and Spicer 2004). As
biodiversity contains the variation of living organisms and it is the main source of the daily
needs, intentionally or not, the biodiversity is actually endangered as it being harvested and
altered to fulfill the agricultural and developments avenues. Houghton (1994) stated in Carroll et
al (1998), approximately only half of the tropical forests' area lost is purposed on expansion of
productive agriculture, while another half was just used to replace the old and unused
agricultural land (Fiedler and Kareiva, 1998). Clearly, regardless from other cases, if the
situation keeps going on, the biodiversity is endangered and will extinct in no time. Human
beings will lose one of their biggest assets in the nature. As a result, human needs to find or
produce without can rely on the cheapest and almost free sources from the biodiversity. The
future generations can no more see the beautiful creatures, and worse, they probably will do not
know presence of a species or things that once live on the earth. Therefore, it is crucial to take an
immediate action to ensure that we will not face the tragedy in the future by conserve the
biodiversity from now on. The major reasons to conserve biodiversity are because of the
ecological reason, economics profits, and ethical and aesthetic significance.

First reason: ecological reason

First and foremost, the biodiversity should be conserve because of ecological reason. The
set of jigsaw puzzle is the best analogy we can put of biodiversity. Each part of it completing the
whole set and an absence of a piece make the whole set imperfect. From that, all of the
components of biodiversity should be protected as every component has at least a tiny piece of

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relationship with the other components inside the biodiversity either. Biodiversity provides the
best maintenance of natural management in which human unable to carry out or create the same
outcomes. For instance, Beattie cited in Bradstock et al. (1995), the biodiversity contributions are
secondary productivity, gas exchange, decomposition, energy flow, pollination, and seed
dispersal. But the reality now is the natural landscapes are being exploited; the harmonist green
scenes are disappearing while the well-built concretes and steels constructions are spreading
rapidly without ignoring the ‘balding and sick’ Mother Nature. The deforestation caused so many
bad effects to the biodiversity which serves the best treatment for human beings. For instance,
one of the ‘services’ provided by the biodiversity is the maintenance of climate by the
biodiversity in which, the carbon dioxide will be consumed by the plants. The concentration of
CO2 once had been increased during the Industrial Revolution as a result of the combustion of
fossil fuels and deforestation. The estimated CO2 concentration average before 1850 was 274
ppm and in 1958, an accurate measurement was taken on Mauna Loa peak, Hawaii where the air
can be considered as clean and far from the pollution that occurred in the urban areas. The
concentration obtained was 316 ppm, and currently, the concentration is above 370 ppm. If the
rate of the CO2 emissions is keep increasing at the constant rate, the concentration of it will be
doubled in 2075 and this is really critical (Campbell and Reece, 2005). Obviously, the forest
destruction results enormous increases in amount of the CO2 in the atmosphere, as reduction in
the amount of CO2 by photosynthesis by plants occurred, and to make it worse, the combustions
also contributing as it releases huge quantities of CO2. In short, the biodiversity should be
conserve because of the ecological reason because it provides the natural cycle and management
especially for human beings’ benefits.

Second reason: economic profits

The second major reason to conserve biodiversity is because of economics profits. The
green natural biodiversity has its own secrets that always bring benefits to human beings. One of
them is the symbiotic relationship between the organisms such as mutualism, commensalism and
parasitism and this symbiotic relationships work best as the biological control (Campbell and
Reece, 2005). In example, the usage of pesticides in 1985, it is reported that the world has spent
$US15.9 billion just on the pesticides, which shows a big amount of money spent only on
pesticides. However, the amount can greatly reduce if biodiversity is applied thoroughly. As

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shown in several provinces of Indonesia where natural assemblages of predators and parasites
can control and at the same time, curtailing the pesticides application in favour (Beattie cited in
Bradstock et al., 1995). Unfortunately, the damaged biodiversity can no more offers efficient and
sufficient system that the organisms needs and maintain the relationship stability. In addition,
human need to repair the damages that have been done before. When the exploitation on earth
surface is uncontrolled, the damages done will be so serious. There will be nothing free anymore,
but on the other hand, the costs to repair the damages will be overwhelmingly high and cause a
huge loss to human beings in advance. This situation can be seen as in deforestation case, in
order to replant the forest back, huge amount of money is needed in terms of labour and machine
costs. It also generates a large period of time to establish it as a new forest which has its
equilibrium to work back to normal. Apart of that, human beings will also feel the impact as the
biodiversity is also the sources of food; human beings will face lack of food supplies in which
finally at the end, may cause starvation all around the world (Chiras et al., 2004). Then, more
costs needed to overcome the food scarcity problems; the costs to find other food sources, the
costs to resolve the starvation problems, and many more. Therefore, the damages clearly take
more costs than preservation. To sum it up, conservation of biodiversity is needed because of
economic profits as it will save more than repair it back.

Third reason: ethical and aesthetical significance

Last but never the least, the reason to conserve biodiversity is because of the ethical and
aesthetical value. Biodiversity is not anyone’s full rights. There are many others living things
that share this earth, the same living place and food sources. Therefore, humans have no rights to
exploit the biodiversity just for human profits. If one species extinct, one of the uniqueness gone
as there will be no more other same species because it can never be reproduced by mankind.
Each of the species has their own beauties and Beattie stated in Bradstock et al (1995), “the
beauty of a species may be found in its sound, colour, form, smell, behaviour, adaptations, ability
to survive and its interactions”. Extinction means less knowledge can be obtained as no more
research on that species can be carried out. In example, Australia arguably has the highest rate of
extinction in mammalian species as from the past 200 years; half of all mammal species goes
extinct from Australia continent. Endangered Species Advisory Committee (1992) stated that
twenty Australian mammal species have been driven to extinction in only 200 years and at the

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same time, some 97 species of plants have been pushed to extinction Australia-wide (Bradstock
et al., 1995). These amounts show how critical biodiversity is threatened. If 200 years before,
twenty mammals were extinct just in Australia, what will happen in the next 200 years all over
the world? Without a doubt, we may have lost more than half species that existing now. Future
generations can no more have any eye candy as the beauty of the ecosystem was lost, they will
have no experience or even knowledge about the species, and they will not learn how resourceful
and beautiful an undisturbed place could be with almost every ecosystem within it. Thus, in
short, the final reason to conserve biodiversity is because of the ethical and aesthetical value.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are three major reasons to conserve biodiversity which are the
ecological reason, economic profits, and ethical and aesthetical value. The biodiversity should be
preserve as it contains the ecosystem cycle which also maintain the stability of the nature.
Humans do not have to pay anything for all of the services provided by the biodiversity and the
damages of it just caused more costs. The biodiversity is also the source of knowledge which
every organism has its own uniqueness. Therefore, for future generations’ profits, it should be
conserved so they can figure out the uniqueness of the biodiversity. All in all, it is important to
conserve biodiversity.

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References

1. Bradstock et al., (1995), Conserving Biodiversity Threats and Solutions, Surrey Beatty
and Sons, Australia, pp 3-9

2. Campbell, NA and Reece, JB (2005), Biology, 7th edn, Pearson Education, United States,
pp. 545,1203-1205

3. Chiras et al., (2004), Natural Resource Conservation: Management for a Sustainable

Future, Pearson Prentice Hall, United States, pp 1-10

4. Fiedler, PL and Kareiva PM (1998), Conservation Biology: For the Coming Decade,
Springer, New York, United States, pp 426-429

5. Gaston, KJ and Spicer, JI (2004), Biodiversity: an introduction, 2nd edn, Blackwell

Publishing, Malden, pp 1-7

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