Preserving Biodiversity as a Resource

The rationale for the preservation of the world's biodiversity runs from the highly spiritual to the pragmatic. On the spiritual side is the growing feeling among some groups that wholesale disturbances of natural systems are somehow unethical or immoral. On the pragmatic side, it is well recognized that the genetic constituents of plants and animals have substantial social and economic value from which all members of the global community may potentially benefit. Genetic information provides direct and indirect inputs for plant breeding programs, development of natural products (including pharmaceuticals and drugs), and increasingly sophisticated applications of biotechnology. The substantial increase in world agricultural output since the early 1970s has been due primarily to the ability of plant breeders to develop high-yielding varieties of the various food and feed grains by utilizing genes drawn from often overlooked plant species. More recently, recognition of the potential of wild genetic resources in development of drugs has led the National Cancer Institute to initiate a massive plant collection project that seeks to identify plants with chemical constituents effective against a variety of cancers. In recent years a number of widely used drugs have been developed from plants, including two important anti-cancer drugs derived from the now well-known rosy periwinkle found in tropical Madagascar.

Making use of wild species

The benefits of using wild plants (or animals) as a resource may be obtained in three general ways. First, a species—or its phenotype, the individual plant or animal—can be consumed directly or it can be a direct source of natural chemicals and compounds used in the production of "natural" drugs and other natural products. Second, a species' natural chemicals can provide information and ideas—a blueprint—indicating unique ways to develop useful synthetic chemicals and compounds. For example, aspirin, an early synthesized drug, is a modification of the natural chemical salicylic acid (found in plants), which is too strong to be taken orally. And third, a wild species can be the source of a gene or set of genes with desired genetic traits that can be utilized in breeding or in newly developed biotechnological techniques. For example, germplasm from wild species is used to maintain the vitality of many important food crops. The latter two utilizations are essentially nonconsumptive, employing the genotype—the characteristics embodied in the genetic constituents of plant and animal species—as a source of information.

One recently publicized example of a useful natural chemical is taxol—a promising anti-cancer compound occurring naturally in the Pacific yew tree found in western North America. In 1985 taxol was found to shrink tumors in many ovarian cancer patients. In addition, its unique anti-tumor properties have been demonstrated in about 50 percent of advanced breast cancer patients treated with the drug. In two recent studies taxol has proved successful in treating tumors that had not responded to conventional treatments such as chemotherapy. It is the first and, to date, only member of a new class of anti-tumor compounds whose unique mechanism of action is distinct from the action of any currently used cytotoxic agent.

The current process for extracting taxol—peeling the bark of the yew—destroys the trees involved. It is anticipated that naturally occurring yews will provide most of the taxol through the mid-1990s, after which other sources will gradually be developed. These could include the conversion of compounds similar to taxol into taxol, the generation of taxol from plant tissue cultures, and biosynthesis. Synthetic production of taxol may also be possible, although this could be difficult due to the complexity of the compound.

With recent breakthroughs in biotechnology, the potential for development of useful products from wild plant and animal species would appear to be limitless. Species that have no current commercial application, contain no useful natural chemicals, or are as yet undiscovered, nevertheless may have substantial value as repositories of genetic information that may someday be discovered and exploited. The ability of modern biotechnology to transfer genes to unrelated natural organisms opens the possibility for the development of a wide variety of engineered plants and animals with hitherto unattainable sets of traits. As biotechnology develops, the scope for utilization of genetic information embodied in wild plants and animals will almost surely increase. Moreover, the ability to utilize the information from different organisms is likely to increase as genetic engineering expertise grows. The benefits of sustaining a rich and diverse biosystem are likely to be large since technology and natural genetic information may well complement each other in economic activity.

Loss of genetic resources

Despite the acknowledged social value of sustaining wild plants and animals, destruction of natural habitats in which they are found is widespread, posing a serious threat to genetic resources. Species with potentially useful characteristics for biotechnological innovations may be lost through tropical deforestation, for example. It has been estimated that 70 percent of the 3,000 plant species known to have anti-cancer properties are found in tropical forests. Considerable criticism has been directed at Third World countries with large areas of tropical forest for not protecting and properly appreciating the values of their native forests, particularly the values of biological diversity.

If preservation were without cost, then all genetic resources would be preserved. However, as the pressures on natural habitats rise due to alternative uses for the land, such as cropping or grazing, the costs of protection and preservation also rise. In earlier periods of human existence preservation of genetic resources was essentially costless. Recently, in situ and ex situ approaches have been used to protect the acknowledged values of genetic resources. The in situ approach involves protection of species in their natural habitats, whereas the ex situ approach involves protecting plants and animals in permanent collections such as zoos and botanical gardens, and preserving seeds and other genetic material in controlled environments such as germplasm banks. Although the ex situ approach has the advantage of lower costs, it is feasible for only a small fraction of species. This approach obviously cannot be used for species as yet unknown. Furthermore, the ex situ approach preserves selected species, not ecosystems, and thus risks the longer-term loss of species that are reliant upon the symbiotic relationships within ecosystems.

Although the destruction of a unique genetic resource base can occur from the consumptive use of a particular plant or animal itself, in practice a much more ominous threat comes from the process of land-use change. Land-use changes that destroy existing habitat and individual phenotypes can inadvertently drive to extinction potentially valuable genotypes, many as yet undiscovered, that are endemic to certain ecological niches.

Sustaining and preserving wild genetic resources

One way to view conceptually the problem of sustaining wild genetic resources is to think of these resources as a lottery containing a vast number of genetic "tickets," each with a different potential payoff. The timing and size of their economic returns vary greatly. Some of these tickets are currently generating payoffs. Others could or might generate future payoffs if the habitat is preserved long enough to allow their discovery and development. Still others would have to await further biotechnological developments before their potential returns could be realized. Although most of the lottery tickets will ultimately provide no payoff in terms of new chemicals, compounds, or transferable genes, a few will eventually result in substantial payoffs—jackpots—in the sense that these genetic resources will eventually generate large social benefits. However, it is difficult to differentiate in advance between those with significant potential future value and those with none.

One result of the lack of private or national property rights to wild genetic resources is that, to date, most efforts to preserve and protect these resources have been altruistic. Most proposals for protecting them have involved actions by governments and the international community to preserve habitat. The usual approach is for environmental groups and the governments of industrial countries to try to persuade governments of developing countries to protect habitats rich in biodiversity, such as tropical rain forests. Some progress is being made—for example, in maintaining plant genetic resources used for breeding food and feed crops. An international system of germplasm preservation, commonly called seed banks or germplasm collections, has been developed. The collections are in both public and private ownership, with the private collections often being held by plant breeders who capture returns through the development of improved stocks to which some forms of exclusive rights exist. However, the system of collections is much less well developed for genetic resources that might have potential for drugs and pharmaceuticals than is the system for plant genetic resources used in crop breeding. In either case, collections can preserve only a small fraction of the total genetic resource base.

Perhaps the most exciting development in the search for vehicles to facilitate protection of genetic resources and to ensure that some portion of the benefits accrue to developing countries is changes in legal arrangements, driven in part by market forces. It was first recognized by Ronald Coase, the most recent Nobel laureate in economics, that external social benefits can often be "internalized" or captured through the simple legal instrument of the contract if transaction costs are small. In the last few years, contractual arrangements have begun to appear that allow developing countries to capture some of the rewards associated with the development of commercial drugs and other products that utilize genetic constituents of wild genetic resources found in their countries. These contractual arrangements require no new property rights. Rather, they utilize the ordinary legal instrument of a contract to, in effect, trade the right to collection in return for a guarantee of some portion of the revenues generated by the commercial development of a product that utilizes a genetic constituent from a unique wild genetic resource collected within the country. The judicious use of contract arrangements can allow for the capture of at least some benefits without de jure property rights to the individual natural genetic resources.

Organizations are also modifying their practices to allow them to enter into contractual arrangements with tropical countries to transfer the development rights to unique wild genetic resources to institutes in developed countries. For example, the National Cancer Institute in the United States is developing transfer agreements with tropical countries that have provisions for compensation, or revenue sharing, or both.

In addition, private collector firms are beginning to enter into contractual arrangements with tropical countries to offer royalties from revenues generated by future product developments in exchange for collection rights to wild plants. The most advanced activity of this type is occurring in Costa Rica, which recently created the National Biodiversity Institute to identify all of the wild plant species in the country, undertake preliminary screening of the various natural plants, and make agreements with pharmaceutical companies for further utilization of promising plants and natural chemicals. In 1991 the institute signed an agreement with the Merck pharmaceutical firm, whereby Merck will provide $1 million over the next two years to help the institute build its plant collection operations. In return, Merck will acquire exclusive rights to screen the collection for useful plant chemicals and extracts. Indonesia is currently investigating the possibility of establishing a similar system that would allow for the capture of some portion of product benefits derived from its biological resources.

Whatever emerges from UNCED, those concerned with biodiversity will confront an extremely complex and rapidly evolving resource issue. In addition to the traditional approaches to protecting areas where biodiversity is high, innovative approaches are evolving that give promise of providing financial incentives for protecting habitat where biodiversity can be preserved and for returning some of the proceeds of the successful development of a natural-based product to the country that provided the genetic constituents. The challenge for UNCED will be to serve as a catalyst for facilitating further development of these innovations, while being careful not to advance procedures and controls that inhibit, rather than promote, such constructive processes.