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UNIT 4
What is Biodiversity and Why is it Important?
Biodiversity is the variability of all living organisms -- including animal and plant species -- of
the genes of all these organisms, and of the terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems of which
they are part.
Biodiversity makes up the structure of the ecosystems and habitats that support essential living
resources, including wildlife, fisheries and forests. It helps provide for basic human needs such
as food, shelter, and medicine. It composes ecosystems that maintain oxygen in the air, enrich
the soil, purify the water, protect against flood and storm damage and regulate climate.
Biodiversity also has recreational, cultural, spiritual and aesthetic values.
Society's growing consumption of resources and increasing populations have led to a rapid loss
of biodiversity, eroding the capacity of earth's natural systems to provide essential goods and
services on which human communities depend. Human activities have raised the rate of
extinction to 1,000 times its usual rate. If this continues, Earth will experience the sixth great
wave of extinctions in billions of years of history. Already, an estimated two of every three bird
species are in decline worldwide, one in every eight plant species is endangered or threatened,
and one-quarter of mammals, one-quarter of amphibians and one-fifth of reptiles are endangered
or vulnerable.
Also in crisis are forests and fisheries, which are essential biological resources and integral parts
of the earth's living ecosystems. The World Resources Institute estimates that only one-fifth of
the earth’s original forest cover survives unfragmented, yet deforestation continues, with 180
million hectares in developing countries deforested between 1980 and 1995. Forests are home to
50-90% of terrestrial species, provide ecosystem services such as carbon storage and flood
prevention, and are critical resources for many linguistically and culturally diverse societies and
millions of indigenous people.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimates that nearly two-thirds of ocean
fisheries are exploited at our beyond capacity. Over one billion people, mostly in developing
countries, depend on fish as their primary source of animal protein.
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Intellectual Property and Biodiversity
Biodiversity and knowledge about it are valuable in part because of their "information content."
As one of the main ways that our society decides who has the rights to control and benefit from
information, intellectual property rights are relevant to the information content of biodiversity.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is committed to strengthening and using
international law and institutions to protect the environment, promote human health, and ensure a
just and sustainable society. CIEL addresses the implications of intellectual property through
advocacy, research, and advice.
What is economically valuable about the information content of biodiversity? Biodiversity —
especially in plants and marine organisms — benefits society as a source of new products and
continued economic productivity. Many of today’s most important pharmaceutical drugs are
based on compounds originally found in diverse species of plants and other organisms.
Similarly, the productivity of modern agriculture is entirely dependent on the inclusion in widely
used crop varieties of genes for disease resistance and other characteristics taken from traditional
crops and wild relatives — termed "genetic resources" in the Biodiversity Convention — found
mainly in the developing world.
Also important is informal knowledge about biodiversity, held in traditional knowledge systems
of indigenous peoples and other local communities, especially in the developing world. This
knowledge is a valuable source for new products in these sectors, as well as for sustainable use
and conservation of local ecosystems.
CIEL advocates the use and reform of intellectual property law in ways that affirm the rights of
indigenous peoples and others who have conserved biodiversity and associated knowledge.
The public interest concerns raised by intellectual property go beyond biodiversity and
indigenous rights. They include not only environmental and ethical concerns — such as the
morality of life patenting, and impacts on biodiversity and traditional knowledge — but also the
growing inequality of access to information and technology between information haves and have
nots, restrictions on access to improvements in health care and agriculture, possible
anticompetitive effects in markets, and disproportionate impacts on developing country
societies.
The leading international standards on intellectual property are now found in the Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) that binds all members of the World
Trade Organization. In the near future, the WTO faces important decisions about IPRs. In
1998, CIEL prepared a discussion paper, The 1999 WTO Review of Life Patenting Under
TRIPS. CIEL continues to work with other non-governmental organizations as well as
developing country governments to address the public interest impacts of TRIPS.
While the expansion of private intellectual property rights at the expense of the public domain
poses threats to the interests of indigenous people and others seeking to preserve biodiversity,
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intellectual property could also offer tools for enhancing the ability of local communities to
handle the pressures of the market economy on their resources. In 1997 CIEL prepared a
discussion paper exploring these issues, Using Intellectual Property as a Tool to Protect
Traditional Knowledge, for a meeting on the protection of indigenous and local communities'
rights under the Biodiversity Convention. In 1999, CIEL attorney David Downes followed up
this effort, coauthoring two papers produced for UNCTAD, Innovative Mechanisms for Sharing
Benefits of Biodiversity and Related Knowledge: Case studies on geographical indications and
trademarks, and Community Registries of Biodiversity-Related Knowledge.
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