Interdependent marine ecosystem

An example from the seas (originally mentioned here years ago but removed because the link to the story no longer worked), was described by National Geographic Wild in a program called, A Life Among Whales (broadcast June 14, 2008).
It noted how a few decades ago, some fishermen campaigned for killing whales because they were threatening the fish supply and thus jobs.
A chain of events eventually came full circle and led to a loss of jobs:
• The massive reduction in the local whale population meant killer whales in the region (usually preying on younger whales) moved to other animals such as seals;
• As seal numbers declined, the killer whales targeted otters;
• As otter numbers were decimated, the urchins and other targets of otters flourished;
• These decimated the kelp forests where many fish larvae grew in relative protection;
• The exposed fish larvae were easy pickings for a variety of sea life;
• Fishermen’s livelihoods were destroyed.

Interdependency vs. Human Intervention
But nature can often be surprisingly resilient, often without the need for human interventions. For example, a documentary aired on the BBCdescribed two national parks in Africa where elephant populations had grown quite large within those artificial boundaries. The usual way to deal with this was to cull the population to try and keep the ecosystem in balance. Without this, elephants were stripping vegetation bare, affecting other animals, too.
A scientist pleaded with park management not to cull and let nature take its course. Being against prevailing thought, they would not agree. In the end they agreed to let one park have its elephants culled, while the other would be left alone.
A few years later, they found the park with the culled population had remained in poor condition. The park where things were left alone has naturally regenerated; the large elephant populations eventually reduced in number as they undermined their own resource base. The natural pace at which this happened allowed vegetation to grow back. Other wildlife grew in numbers and the ecosystem was generally back in balance.

Biodiversity providing lessons for scientists in engineering

For a number of years now, scientists have been looking more and more at nature to see how various species work, produce, consume resources, trying to mimic the amazing feats that millions of years of evolution has produced.
As just one small example, some spiders can produce their silk with a higher tensile strength than many alloys of steel even though it is made of proteins. So biologists are looking at these processes in more depth to see if they can reproduce or enhance such capabilities.


More important than human use or biological interest



Many people may support environmental causes to help preserve the “beauty” of Nature. However, that is in a strange way, not really a justifiable excuse as it is a subjective, human or anthropomorphasized view.
For many decades, various environmentalists, biologists and other scientists, have viewed the entire earth as a massive living organism or system due to the interdependent nature of all species within it. Some cultures have recognized this kind of inter-relationship for a very long time. Some have termed this Gaia.While there are disagreements and differences on how thisworks, it suggests that ecological balance and biodiversity are crucial for all of earth, not just humans.
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Putting an economic value on biodiversity
It was noted earlier that ecosystems provide many services to us, for free.

Although some dislike the thought of trying to put an economic value on biodiversity (some things are just priceless), there have been attempts to do so in order for people to understand the magnitude of the issue: how important the environment is to humanity and what costs and benefits there can be in doing (or not doing) something.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is an organization — backed by the UN and various European governments — attempting to compile, build and make a compelling economics case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.
In a recent report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers 2009, TEEB provided the following example of sectors dependent on genetic resources:


Table: Example of market sectors dependent on genetic resources
Sector Size of Market Comment
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for National and International Policy Makers 2009

Pharmaceutical US$ 640 bn. (2006) 25-50% derived from genetic resources
Biotechnology US$ 70 bn. (2006) from public companies alone Many products derived from genetic resources (enzymes, microorganisms)
Agricultural seeds US$ 30 bn. (2006) All derived from genetic resources
Personal care, Botanical and food & Beverage industries US$ 22 bn. (2006) for herbal supplements
US$ 12 bn. (2006) for personal care
US$ 31 bn. (2006) for food products Some products derived from genetic resources. Represents ‘natural’ component of the market.