Excerpt

In this century, extinction has become a household word. We have been alarmed by the data, or numbed by the staggering confirmation that species are going extinct at rates that are four hundred times greater than any recorded throughout geologic time. Researchers sketch the magnitude of the situation in numbers of species lost—tens of thousands annually in the tropics alone—and confirm that the rate of loss is accelerating. Yet even more troubling, as we take stock of the data, we forget how little we know. Indeed, ecologists such as SFI Science Board member Simon Levin, informed by one hundred years of ecological research and, more recently, systems theory, caution that “we barely understand what we are losing.”

Individual species, and biological diversity as a whole, have long been valued for aesthetic, ethical, and utilitarian reasons. The most fundamental argument for the preservation of biodiversity is “appreciation of wild creatures and wild places for themselves.” The United Nations’ World Charter for Nature, for instance, states that “every form of life is unique, warranting respect regardless of its worth to man, and, to accord other organisms such recognition, man must be guided by a moral code of action.” The debate about whether to destroy the last remaining strains of the smallpox virus highlights the power of this deep-seated ethic to accord value to all forms of life.

The utilitarian argument for biodiversity rests on the services that are provided to humans. For example, one-fourth of all prescription drugs contain active ingredients originally derived from wild plants. To put this in perspective, the World Wildlife Fund in 1991 estimated that only 2 percent of the quarter million described species of vascular plants have been screened for potentially useful chemical compounds. This has prompted great interest in “biological prospecting,” the search for potentially useful natural chemicals before they disappear.

Now, in addition to these established arguments, Levin and his colleagues are calling attention to biodiversity as a source of conceptual insights.

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