Letting a thousand flowers wither

The world will not halt the rate of reduction of biodiversity by 2010

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On Ellyme.".... there is growing support for the creation of a new international body that would “champion” biodiversity. " It would be very interesting to know WHO is supporting and WHY, the creation of yet another international body to supposedly "champion" biodiversity."

International bodies are a waste of time, money, they never have really solved much of anything in the past. It's going to be the every day people that must make the governments make the changes, worldwide. And the people must do it themselves as well. Think what you plant in your own garden or farm to what the climate and the natives of the area you live in, will make a difference.

To the "Who and Why", more than likely the money and self interest people. If there was a campaign to change the perception that the Wall Streets & Corporates seem to have, worldwide, that they think that a company has more right than the human rights of a person, that may also improve things.

What do you reckon?


Biodiversity, an important subject indeed.

Both economically, scientifically, as a scenic wonder for tourists, just for humans and other species to survive most importantly.

People have been changing the biodiversity of world for thousands of years, now, in plant and animal. even here in Australia, it has had transported plant and animal come from other places near by, by people that were on expeditions for fishing and other activities, pre white settlement. Yet a few years ago, have found a dinosaur pine tree in NSW, the Wollemi Pine that has been hidden away.

The fad and the economic transporting of exotic species have done harm to native forests, to native grasses(as in native grasses have been plowed under for things like wheat crops that had to be changed to suite the soils & climate of a particular place, even a new verity of grass for grazing had been used here in Australia for grazing stocks, the native grass has been considered not nutritious enough, that goes for animal stock as well) as well as the ornamental garden verity as well(A reasonable number of species have been declared as being a pest plant, had things like cactus, lantana, plants used in fish tanks being a pest, among many)not only plants but animal(In Australia we have seen cattle, sheep along with things like imported toads, rabbits, fox and such like, causing millions of $'s yearly in land and water degradation)

The most dangerous way we are changing bio diversity is through our food stocks, that could be changed fairly quickly. We have been changing and creating new breeds of animals as domestic stock along with edible vegetable and fruit stocks as soon as we learnt how to domesticate them, but at least it was still a natural selection process, to a degree, which has still shifted the genetic time line too far forward by just doing that. Now we have genetic manipulation happening to a good number of our foods. Those genetic changes by this method has shifted the genetic time line of food stock by thousands of year forward, many to a point where they would never need to reach on their own, even to survive Climate Change, so our current food stock is at high risk of disappearing as climate changes.

We need to preserve natural bio diversity of all living things, even down to the bugs and micro organisms, without them, we would be up to our eyeballs in .... you know what I mean. Also, less biodiversity will mean more diseases, it is a protection for that as well.

Now we are now have been changing the landscape in a way that has not happen naturally for many thousands of years, or to the time when the dinosaurs disappeared or the last ice age. We must remember the the land surface of the world is mostly desert country, and has been on the most part from the days of dinosaurs, off memory, 70% of the land surface is desert( a desert is not just a place that is hot & dry,permanent iced over lands are desert too)so we need to look after what we have.

Native grasses and other plant life need much care if we want to survive as species, ourselves, after all, wheat, rice and so on was just a wild grass once, it feeds us and it feed bird, fish and animals we depend on.


".... there is growing support for the creation of a new international body that would “champion” biodiversity. " It would be very interesting to know WHO is supporting and WHY, the creation of yet another international body to supposedly "champion" biodiversity. What are these enlightened people going to do with the Montreal based SECRETARIAT of the CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY (CBD, 1972) , an international body equipped with human and financial resources and charged with a mission, role and responsibilities that in principle, are to substantively help tackle biodiversity -related issues?
Is this "new" international champion of biodiversity, going to REPLACE or DUPLICATE the CBD Secretariat?
Is the support to the establishment of a "new" international body for biodiversity a recognition of CBD's failure to meet its mandate and goals?
Neither biodiversity, nor climate change, nor poverty alleviation can be effectively handled via the uncoordinated, costly multiplication of bureaucratic bodies.
If part of the problem is scarcity of resources, better use what we already have, foster public-private cooperation and educate people on the values of environmental- (biodiversity- included) services

Prof Bob

Whether it is biodiversity, poverty, illegal immigration, climate change, the lack of fresh water, the use of non-renewable natural resources, or the lack of depositories for our wastes--overpopulation is the underlying cause, but it is too hot a potato for politicians to handle. God, generals and businessmen want more souls, soldiers and consumers. I suggest reading the whole series of "In Search of Utopia" the free ebook series found at The problems of overpopulation may be insurmountable. But there may be a small chance to save the planet--and hopefully some of the good things like biodiversity.


The statement

"Meanwhile there is growing support for the creation of a new international body that would “champion” biodiversity. The proposed Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services would work alongside the existing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

is just plain sick. We don't need more politically produced dogma parading as science to seem creditable. Just more "Hockey Stick" science (the IPCC never did give a response why it dropped this main graph from its reports). Everyone now know that for the last 8 years the global temperatures have been falling and the hottest year over the last 100 years was in 1934. Polar bears have not been dieing and Al gore is making a fortune from his consultancy company. We live in a age of hysteria. Remember DDT, mad cow disease, Y2K, sars, bird flue, swine flue.

Resident Critic

lockewasright wrote:
"The policy agenda proposed by these folks places a higher value on plants and animals than on human beings."

Thinking fallacy of 20. century which discredited itself in every community which fell into environmental crisis.

China, after decades of industrialization, found itself in ecological catastrophe. It currently runs massive governent-sponsored plan to restore biodiversity. Poaching a giant panda is punishable by death.

So much of the countries which consider conservation a fancy of spoiled western greens.

Resident Critic

Very little money is actualy spend on biodiversity conservation.

Among the reasons:
- Most conservation is done in places with importance for tourism, one species, scenic values etc. but not particularly high biodiveristy.
- Some money is spend on scientific grants which don't turn into real conservation.
- Much of money is wasted on side benefits for local communities, like tourism, compensations, wasted on local bureaucracy etc.

Biodiversity is still second-class target. If an organization fights disease, it doesn't include a big package of incentives so that no bureaucrat, businessman and farmer blocks fighting the disease. This is still the normal path when conserving biodiversity.

Aubrey J A

lockewasright wrote:

lockewasright must have been reading a different article. The one I read was making a link between human suffering and the degradation of the natural environment and suggesting that both be approached as linked issues. There's no question that humans will use and displace biodiversity. The questions relate to both the short- and longer term costs of a system which encourages society and nature to absorb the externalities of private use. These are genuinely difficult questions that both economists and ecologists (and many other disciplines) should be grappling with.

prosperity for RI

In my work on the restoration of rivers, climate, economic development, ending poverty in the rust belt of the United States it is absolutely crystal clear that the only way to improve the economy is to heal the damaged ecosystems we live in. My government seems to have not learned that lesson, and the result is 13% unemployment


I can't help but wonder whether the biodiversity movement needs better marketing. Brand Biodiversity! It is hard to think of more serious global problems than the loss of biodiversity. The economic value alone of what nature does for free is staggering.


And the sad thing is that everyone on the face of the planet has plenty to lose as biodiversity decreases.
It really looks like not even the incentive of making profits (especially the pharma industry) counts anymore.
As a matter of fact it could even be argued that someone who has discovered a new substance in the wild might be tempted to destroy the species that produce it in order to gain competitive advance (by forcing everyone to buy the patented synthetic product).
So we're losing, losing, losing on all fronts.
And what is frustrating is that the rate at which our ecosystem is being destroyed AND is transforming itself is accellerating, while our global efforts to protect is are slowing down.
Where are the critical voices of those who stand to lose the most from this - those bright, intelligent women and men in their early 20s...? Don't they realize that they might be facing the real possibility of having to live through a scary and miserable future??

M. B. Moon

It seems to me that genuine progress would not destroy the environment. So we haven't had genuine progress, have we?

What we have had is the looting and exploitation of the poor and the environment via government backed banking cartels.

But blame progress and the free market, why don't you?

Will "The Economist" soon be writing articles on "The next Five Year Plan".

Clue to economic ninnies: A system built on fraud and theft is not going to be benign.


It is sad to see statist social engineering masquerading as economic research. The policy agenda proposed by these folks places a higher value on plants and animals than on human beings. Carried to it's logical conclusion, we apparently should force people off of "sensitive" areas in deference to the flora and fauna. I bet Manhattan, London, Amsterdam, Paris, etc. once teemed with wildlife and plants. Those areas not yet developed should be forced to serve as field labs for this nonsense?
No wonder Brazil, India, and China are still growing while the west withers.


I wonder what the qualification 'lesser known university in the Netherlands' adds to the article, except for a view on how biased correspondents can be. Probably Wageningen University is as good, and likely even better know world-wide than any other Dutch, and many European universities on exactly those areas of research that are being discussed in this article. In the areas of agriculture and environmental studies it has one of the highest number of scientific peer-reviewed publications in the World. Perhaps more directly to the point, in large parts of the developing world, Wageningen is much more likely to ring a bell among scientists and practitioners working on the topics mentioned in this article than any other university name in the Netherlands. But of course, the developing world is not London, New York or Amsterdam... By the way, yes, I am a Wageningen alumnus. And I am glad the Economist is paying attention to this topic!



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