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Utilisation and value of biodiversity

Biodiversity is enormously valuable in its own right, in economic and cultural terms, and in the provision of market and non-market ecosystem goods and services (see Williams et al 2001; PMSEIC 2002; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003; CSIRO 2005; BDAC 2005). Biodiversity underpins the life support systems that we depend upon. When it is lost, ecosystems break down and essential ecosystem services falter, causing economical and cultural impoverishment of societies. This can be seen today in some of the worn-out pastoral areas or salinity-affected agricultural regions of Australia.

Biodiversity supplies a pool of biological and genetic resources that contribute to resilience in ecological, social and economic systems. In ecological systems, biodiversity provides ‘insurance’ against change by maintaining a range of species that perform the same or similar functions but that could adapt differently to changing conditions (Folke et al 2002). Biodiversity’s contribution to social and economic resilience is exemplified by disease resistant crops and new crop plants, such as wattle seeds for protein, plantation eucalypts, new medicines, insecticides and other products (Folke et al 2002; Elmqvist 2003; Simpson and Chudleigh 2003; Resilience Alliance 2006).

The SoE 2001 biodiversity theme report mentioned efforts to estimate the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services (Williams et al 2001). Such approaches are rarely integrated into decision-making processes. This is a major deficiency in current investment in biodiversity management, especially because the size of this investment is partly determined by the balance between poorly defined (and typically longer-term) benefits from conservation and well-defined (but typically shorter-term) benefits from land conversion.

The indicators of utilisation  and value of biodiversity for which data have been collected capture only a small part of the value and utility of biodiversity to Australians. Native species are the basis of the wild-catch fisheries , some aquaculture , native timber harvesting  and many traditional food, fibre, art and craft material and medicines used by Indigenous peoples, particularly in more remote parts of Australia. The latter have considerable cultural and economic value that is rarely quantified or considered in decision-making (see Whitehead 2002). Similarly, there is little information on the economic value of biodiversity for medicine and other biological compounds , although there is increasing investment in the bioprospecting of Australia’s biological resources (see Bioprospect Limited 2006). The ongoing commercial harvesting of species  like kangaroos (Table 3) and some marine fisheries such as the Western Australian Rock Lobster (Genus species) demonstrate the essential role of biological research and population monitoring in the management of species harvested commercially.

Source: DEH (2004a)

Nature-based tourism  provides great benefit to Australia’s economy. It is recognised internationally that it is difficult for the tourism industry, which is dispersed and consists mainly of small to medium enterprises, to invest sufficiently to protect the natural resources that support this tourism industry (Keller 2005). Although few data are available, the same is probably true in Australia. Wider monitoring of pressure from tourism and the effectiveness of management responses, particularly in ecological terms on protected areas, is needed.

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