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Rainforest
Economics
Rainforest Economics
Bifurcated approach to
Rainforest Economics
• Ecological economics
• Traditional market economics
Ecological rainforest
economics
• immense biolog. and geolog. timeframe
• Vast, robust biodiversity reservoir
– intrinsic value
• Vast capacity for nutrient
banking/recycling
– extraordinary reservoirs of living biomass
on some of the poorest soils in the world
• Global/regional/local climate control
– precipitation & oxygenation
Traditional market rainforest
economics
• Narrow human short-term focus
• cultivated products
– coffee, cocoa, bananas, dairy, others
• Tourism / “ecotourism”
– hard currency value to indigent populations
– conservation impetus
• animals economically harvested v. “recycled”
• Vegetation / habitat preservation
Traditional market economics
(continued)
• Rainforest derivative products
– more nutritious foodstuffs
– genetic library (recombinant DNA
techniques) irreplaceable
• example: Tufts University project to clone goat
able to produce goats’ milk w/human blood
anti-clotting protein, antithrombin III (FDA
approval pending)
• cloning technology three years ago w/sheep
”Dolly”
• “only the beginning”
Rainforest product sources
• Survival mechanisms
– Herbivore defenses
• Tissue conservation impetus on poor soils
– Amazonian Hevea brasiliensis: rubber
– hardwoods, resins
• most common: one Amazonian study revealed
– plant biomass at 99.8 % of total ecosystem biomass
– animal biomass remaining 0.2 %
» 7 % ate living leaves / stems
» 19 % ate dead wood (termites)
» 50 % ate dead vegetation
» remaining 33 % carnivories
• called secondary compounds, allelochemics: lack metabolic
function
Example: caffeine
• stimulant to humans
• really an insecticide
– harmful at normal levels found in plants
– type of alkaloid
• called methylxanthines
– interfere w/enzymes
• e.g. tobacco hornworm
– discourages insect feeding
• other alkaloids have other uses
Example: Cyanogenic glycosides
• passion flora (Passiflora spp.)
• cyanide poison
– plant locks cyanide molecule with sugar molecule
– when consumed, sugar reacts w/enzymes in herbivore’s
digestive system
– leaving hydrogen cyanide
– discourages herbivores
• Heliconius spp. Butterfly/caterpillar; able to detoxify
– each species can detoxify one or two cyanogenic glycosides
– butterflies are selective re Passiflora spp.
– specialized hydrolytic enzymes reactive
Rainforest economic relationships
• Case study: Howler monkeys (Alouatta villosa)
– Kenneth glander in Costa Rica (1977)
– Most monkeys only ate at three of 149 Madera negra
(Gliricidia sepium) trees in area
– Others ate at other trees perished
– three w/lowest levels of rotenone (rat poison)
– speculated that hebivory poisons provide a selection
pressure affecting development of intelligence and
social/communication skills in primates
• remembering toxic v. safe trees
– analogy: 149 restaurants, 146 poison customers, 3 safe
• we would tend to remember where the safe ones were
similar Human/animal approaches
• humans use toxic rainforest products for beneficial
uses
• animals likewise
– example: orange monarch (Danaus plexippus)
• milkweed produces cardiac glycosides (digitalis) to discourage
herbivory
• caterpillars feed on milkweed
• caterpillars accumulate and store digitalis in tissues
• after metamorphosis, butterfly toxic to birds
– usually regurgitate, but remember unpalatable
• reason why they can be so beautifully and colorfully marked:
like labeling poison for children
Conflict of ecological / market
economics
• competing resource uses
– land use
– water allocation & storage
– air (e.g., fossil fuel use)
• paradigm conflict, and irony:
– defense creates value
– value creates demand
– demand can produce overharvesting
– overharvesting contributes to extinction
– therefore defenses may contribute to extinction
Food products
• Fruits
– flavors: chemical defenses/inducements re
seeds dispersal
• get seeds to right place
• keep seeds out of wrong place
– repellents, antibiotics, odors, ripeners,
hormones, colors, germination inhibitors,
vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats and
carbohydrates
• Coffee, teas (caffeine, tannin)
Common foods and drugs
• from Latin American forests
– corn, potato, tomato, peanuts, avocado, cashews,
vanilla, sunflower, bananas, mangoes
– quinine, mescaline, and cocaine
• commonality points toward unknown losses
due to deforestation
– US sugarcane industry saved (75% reduction)from
aphid-transmitted virus by utilizing resistant wild
sugarcane variety from Java
– coffee rust infections likewise defeated by
incorporating wild germplasm genetic resistance
Uncommon potential foods
• winged bean (legume)
– also called asparagus pea
– from forest of New Guinea
– far more protein that common foodstuffs, e.g.,
potatoes
– matches soybean
• once uncommon, now principal crop
• pummelo (fruit)
– larger than grapefruit
– saline tolerant (intrusion increasing)
– US consumes 55 million tons of citrus ann.
Genetic library
• potential applications of recombinant
DNA techniques; still in infancy
• insecticides
– insects: e.g., termites
– plants: daisy (Chrysanthemum coccineum)
produces pyrethrum, the most
commercially significant “knock down”
insecticide
– called “Lucretia Borgia” of plant world
Genetic library (continued)
• insects may destroy more than one-third of
total human agricultural production annually
• synthetic insecticides persistent (DDT)
• plant-based insecticides biodegradable
– no bioaccumulation problem
• The success of any gene-splicing approach
will be defined by the extent of the available
library
– devel. insect resistance demands library depth
Medicines
• muscle relaxant (arrow poison)
Chondodendron strychnos
• anticancer drug from Tabebuia species
patented by Pfizer
• expectorant Cephaelis ipecacuanha
– every parent familiar, once cured Louis XIV
from amebic dysentery
• antitumoral drug “pristimerin” Maytenus
illicifolia
More on Medicines
• Digitalis from foxglove (Digitalis
purpurea)
– cardiac glycoside stimulant insecticide
– Can be fatal to normal hearts at ordinary
plant levels
• Madagascar periwinkle
– drug: “vincristine”
– folk medicine discovery
– 98%+ remission rate children with
lymphocytic leukemia
Markets for medicines
• Largest derivative (processed) market:
USA
• Largest folk remedy market: china
• one est. rainforest pharmacological
compounds: $60 billion dollars ann.
• One est. commercial medical products
derive from rainforest sources
– 7,000 products
– number is growing
Significant subpopulation
variations
• even within species, plants vary
– subpopulations vary, Individuals vary
• e.g., apples vary
• e.g., taste of maple syrup can vary among individual
trees
• Plant species may not be homogenous
globally, regionally or locally
• therefore apparent localized extirpations may
in fact be extinctions of individuals with
different traits
• idea of species as patches of individuals
Related products
• stimulants:
– caffeine
– cocaine
– pepper
• others
– sweeteners (stevioside)
– perfumes
Brazil
• name derived from sodium salt brazilien
– from the woody tree Caesalpinia echinata
• wide commercial use for purple pigment at time
Brazil colonized
• Only about 1% of Brazilian angiosperm species
plants examined for chemical compounds
– rate of work may not keep abreast of extinctions
– localized unknown populations of special concern
• example: snail darter / Telleco dam
Animal harvesting for animal
testing
• primates
– can be raised in captivity
– cheaper to capture wild
– 90% utilized are wild
• anecdote: experience of in-house chemist
formerly employed at major chemical
manufacturer
Risks of Harm
• Extinction cascade
– interdependence of species
• extinction of first species may lead to extinction of
second
– example: Calvaria major and dodo
• seed of calvaria major required abrasion in intestines of
dodo; dodo became extinct over 300 years ago
• only 13 individual plants left in wild, all 300 years old
• scientist force-fed seeds to turkeys; abraded and
germinated
– simply perceiving such interrelationships is difficult
Electrification in developing
nations
• competition with rainforest biomasss for
land use
– not opting for sustainable use methods
– hydroelectric method in rainforest
environments
• est.: water flow could yield 100,000 megawatts
daily
– equal to 5 million barrels of oil daily
• large reservoirs inundate vast tracts of forest
Electrification in developing
nations (continued)
• fossil fuel method produces significant
pollution, including acid rain deposition
with concomitant effects
• expensive fossil fuels create incentive to
use hydro where available
Hydro-electrification example:
Lake Brokopondo
– Surinam, 1964
• flooded 570 square miles of rainforest
• trees not harvested: take too long, “too
expensive”
• decomposing trees produced hydrogen sulfide,
damaging dam hardware and costing $5m in
unanticipated capital repairs (7% above project
estimates)
• malaria-carrying mosquito breeding grounds
enhanced
• water lilies choked out other native species
Contrast: sustainable
practices
• Swidden agriculture
• Dairy cattle v. beef cattle production
– American Quakers to Costa Rica, 1950s
– cut trees but left to rot, recycling nutrients
– pastures divided into 30 equal parts
• cattle one day each part, 12 days grazing each
part yearly
– became major sources of cheese in central
America
Conclusion
• Public policy consensus
– sustainable v. unsustainable
• by definition, unsustainable practices must
cease
• questions are:
– when
– what is left when it ceases
• Optimal human beneficial uses
– consume rainforest
– preserve rainforest