BIODIVERSITY ENTRY POINT PAPER

Izabella Koziell, DFID

‘A social problem rooted in a biological world’ (Swanson, 1997).

Introduction

1. This paper discusses the DFID approach to biodiversity, in the context of the goal to reduce by one half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015. Following an introduction to the concept of biodiversity as a resource, the paper discusses how biodiversity should be viewed by the bilateral programme in support of sustainable rural livelihoods. Finally, the paper discusses how this relates to the wider issue of the global value of biodiversity.

What is biodiversity?

2. Biodiversity is described as the variety of living organisms and is often considered at three levels: genetic, species and ecosystem (Convention on Biological Diversity, 1993; WRI, 1992; McNeely et al., 1990; Wilson, 1989).

3. Biodiversity has resulted from a gradual accumulation of differences between individual organisms throughout four billion years of evolution. In our time span, biodiversity is therefore a non-renewable resource. Once lost, this diversity cannot be renewed. In Sri Lanka, for example, the number of rice varieties has dropped from 2,000 in 1958 to less than 100 today (WCMC, 1992). In contrast, rice - considering biomass irrespective of biodiversity - remains a renewable resource (Swanson, 1997).

4. The distinction between biodiversity and biomass is important but the relationships are not always simple or clear. A reduction in biodiversity may or may not affect biological productivity, stability or ecological processes (WRI, 1989). For example, productivity of a maize monoculture can be higher than from a diverse production system per unit area - but will require higher inputs and may be much more susceptible to disease. North America, Madagascar and Australia have lost a large share of their vertebrate megafauna within the recent past, yet there is, as yet, scant evidence of profound ecosystem instability (Myers, 1996). Ecosystem processes, such as carbon sinks, can be maintained either by a tract of biodiverse rainforest or a uniform plantation of eucalyptus trees. However, a eucalyptus plantation would probably provide less cycling of minerals and soil nutrients and support fewer plants and animals (Myers, 1996).

5. The focus of this paper (and the associated Linking Policy and Practice in Biodiversity (LPPB) project) will be on the specific contribution of biodiversity as a resource - rather than biomass - to sustainable rural livelihoods.

 

Linking Policy and Practice in Biodiversity (LPPB) Project The LPPB project aims to improve and clarify our understanding of the inter-relationships between biodiversity and development, particularly at the bilateral country programme level, in order to assist DFID in its decision-making. It also aims to clarify linkages between local, national and global concerns. The project will consider both wild and domestic biodiversity across a range of productive sectors.

 

How does biodiversity relate to sustainable rural livelihoods?

6.The sustainable rural livelihoods approach has shifted the emphasis towards first considering people, and then examining how they manipulate different capital stocks (natural, physical, social, financial and human) to augment their livelihoods. Biodiversity represents a part of natural capital. Natural capital provides the material, energy, processes and information which people combine to produce and accumulate other capital stocks - physical, human and financial - from which are derived positive livelihood outcomes. Thus, biodiversity should be seen as a means of contributing to sustainable rural livelihoods, rather than an end in itself.

6. Both wild and domesticated biodiversity hold significant social, aesthetic, cultural and economic values for human societies. Some of the generic economic values are displayed in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Categories of potential economic values assigned to biodiversity
Use Values		Examples
Direct Use	Outputs that are directly consumable or tradable	Harvested products for consumptive use (e.g. firewood, fuel, fodder, game meat, cash crops, timber, fish, ivory and medicinal plants) and non-consumptive use (e.g. ecotourism and recreation)
Indirect Use	Outputs that provide functional benefits	Ecological functions, flood and storm protection, waste assimilation, microclimatic functions, nutrient cycles, photosynthesis, carbon stores, soil production
Non Use Values		Examples
Option Values	Future direct and indirect values	Maintenance of biodiversity for future direct and indirect use and non-use
Bequest Values	Use and non-use value of environmental legacy	Prevention of irreversible change in habitats
Existence Values	Value gained from continuous knowledge of existence	Cultural and spiritual assets, worth of wildlife species, natural areas, and overall biodiversity as objects of intrinsic and stewardship value
After Pearce and Moran (1994)

8. Some of these categories have direct use to people, and benefits arising are more easily measurable and quantifiable, e.g. financial returns gained from harvesting a stand of timber. Others are less easily quantifiable, because they provide functional values, e.g. the contribution of forest diversity to watershed protection, or depend upon potential future rather than short-term benefit, or are ‘global’ and cannot be captured by, or allocated to, any one individual group of people. The implications of this are discussed in the final section of the paper.
9. The use values can be more easily realised through a range of management activities that can involve combinations of approaches along a spectrum from total protection to total conversion of biodiversity. These management activities offer a series of options for use of biodiversity, some being more appropriate than others within the specific ecological and socio-economic context. Both conversion and protection of biodiversity can bring different benefits - and different costs - to different people. It is important to clarify who is likely to receive benefits, and who is likely to suffer the costs, in both the shorter and longer term.
10. Benefits of conversion. Over the millennia, people have been converting natural capital to other forms of capital stock. Biodiversity provides the range of species and varieties, the careful selection of which has enabled the successful expansion of those species and varieties that are particularly appropriate for converting to food, fuel, shelter, clothing and other goods. Such manipulations have provided the basis for wealth accumulation and appropriation of other capital assets, albeit not always on an equitable basis. As a result, countries that have ‘converted’ biodiversity are often rich materially in comparison to those that have not. It is therefore understandable that ‘unconverted’ countries are keen to follow similar and safely ‘proven’ development paths.
11. Costs of conversion. Despite the uncertainties that surround measurement of biodiversity, there is now ample evidence to show that biodiversity is declining. Whilst decline associated with conversion has provided distinct benefits to certain groups of people, it can also be associated with heavy livelihood losses, particularly to those who are politically and socially marginalised, or the ‘poorest of the poor’. These groups have often continued to remain directly dependent on biodiversity for both on-farm and off-farm livelihood activities. Loss of this biodiversity undermines their production choices, food security and increases exposure to risk. In this context, it is not generally the loss of a single species that is meaningful, but the loss of large components of biodiversity. For poor and marginalised groups, protection and maintenance, and improved access to, biodiversity can often contribute more to sustainable livelihoods than conversion.
12. The benefits of maintaining and protecting biodiversity. Protection and sustainable use of biodiversity can also provide unique values (Box 1 below). The challenge lies in ensuring these values can be captured and retained by local people as well as broader groups.

Box 1: Potential benefits provided by maintenance or sustainable use of biodiversity

· A diversity of species provides a range of economic and investment opportunities. · Food security is improved by a range of varieties which help reduce the risk of loss due to pests, and increase tolerance to climatic stress. · Land can have greater biomass output over longer periods of time when biodiverse (non-diverse farming systems succeed by economies of scale, and over shorter periods of time - often requiring high levels of inputs to sustain yields). · Protection is provided against epidemic pathogens - the more genetically uniform a population is, the more vulnerable it is to epidemic disease. · Genetic information is available to plant breeding and pharmaceutical industries the outputs of which contribute to food security and improved human health. · Exposure to environmental risk is reduced through supporting ecosystem processes which protect poor people from variables such as drought and flood. · Nutrition and health are improved by providing a source of medicines and vitamins for humans and livestock. · A range of unique social and cultural identities which have developed through the establishment of different people-landscape interactions are maintained.

13. Costs associated with maintaining areas of high biodiversity. In addition to the opportunity cost of forgone gain from conversion (to monoculture, for example), costs include livestock and crop losses from wild animal encroachment and predation, weeds and pest infestation. In some situations, it is the activities designed to maintain biodiversity which have impacted negatively upon livelihoods. For example, the establishment of protected areas has sometimes been associated with resettlement programmes, human displacement and restrictions on access to local resources. Even where protected areas bring tourism, gains from tourism often benefit outsiders rather than local communities. Such protected area programmes have sometimes led to serious conflicts between local communities and government park departments and an escalation in the costs of protection. Finally, the banditry, poaching and smuggling associated with ‘wilderness’ areas has occasionally had significant negative impacts.

How should DFID support the contribution of biodiversity to sustainable rural livelihoods?

1. DFID is committed to eradicating poverty. Thus, certainly in the context of the bilateral programmes and the sustainable rural livelihoods approach, the focus should be on maximising social and economic benefits that arise out of the protection, sustainable use or conversion of biodiversity, and seeking their fair and equitable distribution.

2. The shift in emphasis of the sustainable rural livelihoods approach implies the term ‘win-win’ should no longer be understood to mean the Purpose is both poverty reduction and biodiversity maintenance. The Purpose of the bilateral programme should be poverty reduction. A ‘win-win’ situation occurs where maintenance of biodiversity is the best means of achieving poverty reduction.
3. In this context:

• Protectionist interventions for maintaining biodiversity will be of relevance only where the benefits to local people arising from protection exceed those arising from an alternative activity. In Bangladesh, for example, local people establish ‘brush parks’ which create protected habitats for breeding stock by restricting fishing. Such a mosaic of protection and use of biodiversity has applications in other sectors, but the link between maintaining a reservoir of biodiversity and supporting local livelihoods must be demonstrable.

• Between the extremes of total protection and entire conversion, most options will involve a degree of partial conversion (involving some loss of biodiversity) and sustainable use. Once again, such activities should be supported only where they result in greater benefits for poor people than other alternatives. For example, in Java, during the pre-colonial era, large urban populations were supplied successfully by the garden farming system which was extremely biodiverse, encouraging integration of both domestic and wild elements (Christanty et al., 1986). Examples of sustainable use of wild biodiversity are found in community-based wildlife management programmes.

• Conversion, which may reduce biodiversity, will also continue to be assessed against what it contributes to sustainable rural livelihoods. DFID should aim to ensure the equitable distribution of benefits, and also that conversion of biodiversity-rich areas for wider benefit does not undermine people’s welfare within that locality.

What are the trade-offs to consider in the management of biodiversity for development?

1. In the section above, we argue that biodiversity should be considered as a resource which can contribute to sustainable rural livelihoods in many different ways, directly and indirectly, in the short and long term. We point out that the greatest challenge lies in ensuring, and maintaining, objectivity over decisions regarding effective use of biodiversity for poverty reduction. Such an approach entails questioning some of the general assumptions that continue to be made regarding relationships between biodiversity decline and human development. It involves ensuring that decisions are framed within the specificity of the local or regional context. And it involves recognising that there are difficult trade-offs (or generally combinations of trade-offs) to make in such decisions. These include:

• long-term vs. short-term imperatives
• quantifiable value vs. non-quantifiable value
• anticipated value vs. actual value
• local value vs. global value.

How should DFID make these choices?

Long-term vs. short-term imperatives

2. Sustainable rural livelihoods demand sustainable use of resources. For example, DFID would not promote conversion to a less diverse system for short-term gain if such a system was unsustainable.

3. However, the short-term needs of poor people and governments cannot be ignored. Vulnerability, need or greed, may lead people to take decisions based on a short-term view. Too much unpredictability lies between the now and the long-term future. For example, colonisers in forest margins may choose farming methods - such as rearing cattle - which are heavily supported by government incentives, and which otherwise would not be economically viable and are unsustainable in the long-term. Turning forest to farmland may support a family for two years, but after that the only option may be to burn more forest (Blench, 1998). How should DFID and partner governments assist in making such choices?

Quantifiable value vs. non-quantifiable value

4. When considering management options for reducing poverty through direct use of biodiversity, economic benefits are more easily measurable. But how does one quantify the value of protecting a watershed? More difficult still, how does one measure the spiritual or cultural value of biodiversity to local people? How do we weigh the measurable against the un-measurable when making management choices?

Anticipated value vs actual value

5. Closely related to the two categories above, is the question of anticipated values. For example, there may in the future be great value in bioprospecting. But technological improvements in drug development may make these values worthless - or what value exists will be captured by agents other than local people. How should DFID balance such potential benefit against the certain benefit of, for example, converting that biodiverse system?

Local value vs. global value

6. We need to recognise that our own concerns about climate change, endangered species and preserving ‘the natural order of things’ may be significantly different to the priorities of most poor people. This does not mean our purpose (i.e. reducing poverty) is different; the differences manifest themselves in how we choose to achieve that purpose. Global biodiversity benefits, as defined by us, cannot be allocated to any individual group of people. Therefore, the costs of maintaining global biodiversity should not be transferred onto poorer groups.

7. The bilateral country programme has the remit of reducing poverty in any particular country. Ideally, global concerns such as these would not therefore enter bilateral decisions. These are issues for multilateral and international funding. However, bilateral programmes may sometimes find themselves serving the global - in addition to the local - good. In such cases, the programme must be sure that livelihoods of local people, or the effectiveness of the programme in reducing poverty, are not compromised in any way.

 

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