SUBJECT: Biodiversity and biophilia.
AUTHOR: Allan Watt
DATE: 3rd April 2003

KEYWORDS: Biodiversity resources, conservation, biophilia, biodiversity dependence.

SUMMARY: Although research on the conservation of biodiversity should be regarded as a priority, we also need research on our dependency on biodiversity as a supplier of biological resources, in the widest sense of the word. It is argued that we have neglected some of the intangible resources that biodiversity provides, and that, in particular, we have neglected the benefits of the human bond with biodiversity.

Andreas Troumbis asks us “what main biological resources do we need to consider… to better understand the risks associated with our dependency on biodiversity?”

At the start of this e-conference, I wondered how much the participants would focus on the tangible biological resources that biodiversity provides us. In the first couple of days we did, indeed, focus in detail on one, very tangible, resource, food. However, the discussion then switched to powerful arguments, from Jari Niemela and Martin Sharman, to consider, and conserve, all of biodiversity.

I agree with the principle that we should conserve all of biodiversity for its own sake and irrespective of the goods and services that it provides. Martin Sharman feels that the “goods and services” argument is distasteful and dangerous. I agree but only insofar as the use of this argument as the primary reason for conserving biodiversity. However, we also need to consider the biological resources that biodiversity provide. We are truly dependent on biodiversity and science should address this dependency, the topic of this e-conference, although not to the detriment of research on conserving biodiversity.

The discussion in the e-conference has made me think about the extent of this dependency, particularly the tangible resources that I referred to above. There is a long list of such resources, including the food that we eat, the clean water we drink and the clean air we breathe.

But what of the other, less tangible resources that biodiversity provides. I hesitate even to refer to them as resources because I suspect that we can all live without them. These “resources” are provided by plants, animals and landscapes; they are what I see, hear and smell. They are also what I know to exist but have never seen and will never see. They are even what I imagine to exist. What they provide is difficult to describe, particularly for a scientist trained to be quantitative. So I’ll quote E.O. Wilson:

“…I stood in the Arawak village of Bernhardsdorp and looked south across the white-sand coastal forest of Surinam. For reasons that were to take me twenty years to understand, that moment was fixed with uncommon urgency in my memory. The emotions I felt were to grow more poignant at each remembrance, and in the end they changed into rational conjectures about matter that had only a distant bearing on the original event. The object of the reflection can be summarised by a single word, biophilia, which I will… define as the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes.”

Wilson then devotes the rest of his book Biophilia (published by Harvard University Press in 1984) to “the human bond with other species”. Wilson is, of course, better known for promoting the word “biodiversity” (although not inventing it) and I rarely hear biophilia being mentioned. But as I stare at the cover of my old copy of the book and read the words quoted above I remember my “Bernhardsdorp” moments. Indeed, I recall the strength that experiencing biodiversity has given me throughout my life, wherever I am, from watching (and being watched by) gibbons in primary forest in Sumatra to the screams of swifts in our cities, towns and villages, a sound I eagerly await every year.

Am I - are we - dependent on biodiversity in this way? I am not sure but, at the risk of offending some other participants in this e-conference, I would argue that the human species is more dependent on biodiversity in the way that I struggle to describe above than in the diversity of cheese.

If it is true that we are dependent on biodiversity in this way, it is, I think, another argument to support the view that we should conserve all of biodiversity. In this respect, I support Martin Sharman’s list of research needs, and would add a few more.

However, I also support the view that we need to understand better how biodiversity supplies the resources that we are dependent on. Andreas Troumbis listed several areas of research and others have been discussed. I strongly support his call for research on the role of biodiversity as indirect and dynamic mediators of ecosystem services. However, this research must be practical. To quote Jari Niemela, we need research to “make sure that [biodiversity] keeps providing its vital services to maintain itself and humankind”.

And surely we need to understand better the human bond with biodiversity. Are we dependent on it? Why are we dependent on it? What difference does it make to us? What aspects of biodiversity particularly drive this bond?

A contribution by:

Allan Watt
CEH Banchory,
Hill of Brathens, Banchory
Aberdeenshire AB31 4BW, UK