BIODIVERSITY : CONSERVATION & CHALLANGES

IRJMST YEAR[2012] Volume 3 Issue 2 Online ISSN 2250 - 1959 BIODIVERSITY : CONSERVATION & CHALLANGES Dr. Pramila Rajput Associate Prof. in Botany Govt. College, Distt. - Phalodi (Rajasthan) ABSTRACT SERVICES Human activities can cause irreversible changes that harm this ecosystem. Human activities, justifiable as they may be for survival or development of one group, when harmful can lead to excesses, neglecting duties to other people or other species as well as the environment. Interdependence of humans and other living beings must be addressed for the survival of all species. The human species, having a predominant position within the biosphere, has a duty to care for the Earth and its biosphere, not as its owner but rather as its manager; this means not considering only producing immediate gains but also sustaining the vital interests of our species, in present and future generations. Solutions that balance immediate and long-term benefits may be found using a global perspective, taking account of all interlinked parameters in the world system: economic growth, consumption patterns, lifestyles, scientific and technological progress, and above all justice and equity. This necessitates addressing problems in the framework of international cooperation, in the spirit of universal solidarity. There are therefore multiple ethical aspects to biodiversity. Key words : Earth, Human, Biosphere INTRODUCTION Since the last century, in just a few decades, concern about an increasing rate of loss of biodiversity has become widespread among the public. It has ceased to be an exclusive concern of well-informed persons, ecology or biology scientists and experts. Indeed, these losses have been examined in the media, and it is becoming common knowledge that the loss of biodiversity is intimately linked to ecosystem changes, some of which are already visible and tangible. In places, ordinary people are already directly or indirectly coping and adapting to the global atmosphere's warming, which is a major change in the global ecosystem. In places, people are facing historically unpredictable flooding of formerly inhabited lands or islands; in other places people are facing severe droughts, the spreading of deserts and consequent famine, shortage of clean drinking water, or unexpected health problems. These local upheavals can be causally linked to the change in the global ecosystem, and increasing rate of loss of biodiversity is another result. International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology http:www.irjmst.com Page 173 IRJMST YEAR[2012] Volume 3 Issue 2 Online ISSN 2250 - 1959 The fact that vital resources (e.g., food, medicine, and other services) are derived from nature has inevitably convinced humans, even by intuitive understanding, that variety in living nature has importance and interest for human existence. Indeed, humans must always have intuited that for survival, diversity in living nature is advantageous. That is the source for the idea that, given human capacity to do harm, there is now a duty that the diverse ecosystem should be protected. Yet, it is possible that humans could mistakenly believe that the healthy ecosystem, which has always been there, will remain stable and unchanged for all time. An ecosystem can condition and give rise to diversity at every level of biological organization, including species, individual organisms, and molecules such as DNA and proteins (Bowler 1989). As a system, it will also be more stable if it can withstand some loss of biodiversity (as may occur in a drought year), if populations that remain are themselves diverse enough to "replace" the losses, as they diversify with time. Indeed, the most resilient ecosystem will necessarily include a great diversity of life forms or "biodiversity." Scientists agree that present biodiversity losses are due to multiple factors, some natural and some attributable to human activities (ICSU 1992). According to the political concept of conservation of nature, societies have to prepare to conserve the nature's diversity by various measures, including by ensuring that any human exploitation of nature is justifiable, equitable, and ecologically sustainable. For instance, logging today causes vast areas to be deforested, leading also to desertification; industrial- scale agriculture today results in disrupted virgin forests and the invasion by nonnative species that establish and spread outside their normal habitat; harsh exploitation of land to extract raw materials on the surface, underground, at sea bottom, or from lakes or other waters may be justified by our present human development needs. Ecosystem changes have positive or negative influence on biodiversity loss/gain rates in the immediate sense, for example, when atmosphere become warmer in the context of climate change (Meakin 1992). Scientists have contributed to an understanding that some human activities contribute, and possibly exacerbate, to ongoing environmental changes, and the rate and speed of biodiversity loss has come to be used as indication of a negative influence. It is now understood that human activities have increased the extinction species rate by at least 100 times compared to a natural (prior) rate. Confronted with the decline and extinction of some species, political conscience has been raised all over the world for improving the protection of nature. In some places, nature is being viewed as part of the shared commons or shared patrimony. Especially in the case of wasting natural resources, there is great concern. The conservationist idea has gradually led to measures to protect spaces like national parks, to protect the quality of air and International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology http:www.irjmst.com Page 174 IRJMST YEAR[2012] Volume 3 Issue 2 Online ISSN 2250 - 1959 water, and to establish use controls, such as for hunting and fishing or for land use. In parallel, relatively recent progress in the field of genetic engineering has allowed spread and commercialization of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These novel life forms that did not previously occur in nature are thus being introduced, in agriculture, for example. This gives rises to important questions not only for the health of the first consumers but also and especially for the long-term impacts on ecosystems on which we depend. Increased political sensitivity for conservation of ecosystems may help to measure for long-term impact monitoring and control even in this area. At the same time, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) was established as a result of the first Earth Summit held in Stockholm (1972). By 1980, the concerns relating to the impacts of human activities on species and ecosystems give rise to a new branch of biology, called the "biology of conservation," meant to support the implementation of measures and actions for conserving nature. The Earth Summit of Rio, held in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), could be considered as the turning point when for the first time a shared realization that environmental change is posing a threat to the habitability of the planet Earth could support a consensus for taking political action. The Earth Summit convened representatives from 178 nations, nongovernmental agencies, and many other interested parties among which thousands of members of the media; and it focused on global environmental issues that would become central to policy implementation. During this meeting, delegates adopted the Convention on Biology Diversity (CBD) marking a collective effort of wills, recognizing that sustainable development and the protection of biodiversity must be considered as a common concern of humanity. The CBD has become the framework of national strategies to preserve biodiversity (Meakin 1992). DEFINITION Biodiversity is exhaustively defined, in the article 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity: Biodiversity or biological diversity means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species, between species and ecosystems (CBD 1992). The concept refers also to the presence of humans who depend on biodiversity for sustainable development of societies. So, biodiversity exists at three levels of organization: genes, species, and ecosystems; biodiversity is not limited to describing the variety of species but represents also interactions between living beings and also between them and their physical and chemical environments at different levels. The term covers how this diversity changes from one location to another over time. Indicators such as the number of species in a given area can help in monitoring some aspects of biodiversity but remain incomplete and insufficient for providing an accurate picture of the extent and distribution of all components of biodiversity. History has it that the expression International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology http:www.irjmst.com Page 175 IRJMST YEAR[2012] Volume 3 Issue 2 Online ISSN 2250 - 1959 biological diversity was coined by Thomas Lovejoy. This conservation biologist introduced the term to the scientific community in 1980. It was then used by Walter Rosen during a congress entitled "The National forum on Biodiversity" held in Washington in 1986. THE UNITY OF THE EARTH'S ECOSYSTEM It is said that in 1854, a man named Seattle, representing several Indian (first inhabitants) tribes, replied to pressure from the US government to buy Indians' land, by an ecological appeal that still resounds today in a universal echo. He reportedly said "We are part of this land; this land is part of us... Rivers are our sisters, they quench our thirst, carry our canoes and feed our kids... the sweet-scented flower is our sister; stag, horse, the big eagle are our brothers; the rocky crest, the sap in meadow, the heat of pony, and human; all are members of the same family.....When all buffalos will be slaughtered, wild horses tamed, the secret nooks of forest overload with the odor of many humans, and the view of flowered hills tarnished by the speaking wires... Then, where will be thickets? Disappeared. Where will be eagle? Extinct. And that extinction will mark the end of life, and the beginning of survival." HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY Humans are one component of an ecosystem and often in a predominant position. Indeed, at the present state of our knowledge, humans are the only living beings capable of conscience, self-criticism, and moral judgment. Humans are the only living beings to whom moral responsibility could be attributed. Moreover, in organized human society the capacity of humans is still greater than at the level of one individual. Human responsibility includes obligations toward future generations. Indeed, the concept of humanity refers to the principle of human dignity as emphasized as well in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) as in the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (2005). An intrinsic value is recognized in human-kind considered as a whole, not only consisting in each of all individual humans that now exist all over the world but also including future generations. Thus, a moral responsibility is assigned to the present generation: the obligation to bequeath to future generations a planet that remains a place in which it is pleasant to live. To meet that responsibility, humans must not devastate the Earth today. PUBLIC AWARENESS Debates on biodiversity questions are, with good reason, carried out among intellectuals, scientific and technology experts, taking account of their complexity. However, because solutions depend not only on political decisions but also on the attitudes of those who will have to carry them out in their daily lives, it appears obvious that public awareness of different possible schemes should be increased. The public has International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology http:www.irjmst.com Page 176 IRJMST YEAR[2012] Volume 3 Issue 2 Online ISSN 2250 - 1959 to be informed about the benefits of conservation, especially so that it may consider trade- offs between different options; this could help to maximize the benefits to society. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ISSUES From an economic point of view, various goals pursued in society to improve business activities depend on biodiversity and modify ecosystems. It has been demonstrated, for example, that actions to increase food production can lead to reduce water availability for other uses with, as a consequence, deterioration in other ecosystem services. The value of services lost may greatly exceed the short-term economic benefits that are gained (UNESCO 1999). It has to be pointed out that a large number of the world's poor people rely directly on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and then livelihoods would be affected first and foremost by decrease in the services related to food production, nutrition, water, and sanitation. Indeed, over the last century, some people have benefited from the conversion of natural ecosystems and increase in international trade, while others have suffered from the consequences of biodiversity losses and from restricted access to resources they depend upon. CONCLUSION Considering things at the planetary scale, it is now assessed that biodiversity losses and its corollary, the deterioration of ecosystem services, are faster in recent decades than ever before in the history of humanity. Even if parts were attributed to natural causes, the damage resulting from human activities can be addressed. Normal human activities, even legitimate and perfectly justifiable by several human needs like agriculture, livestock, business, and exploiting raw materials for development, become harmful and, at the end, inevitably lead to serious imbalance if they go too far, without taking care not to harm other people or other living species as well as the environment. Ethics of care is proving to be appropriate, with consideration of the long term. Moreover, biodiversity should be attributed an intrinsic value, beyond its utility for humans. So, firstly considered as res nullius, biodiversity gradually appears as having amenity and ethics value. The Earth is one and common not only for the whole humanity but also for nonhuman living beings, that is to say animals, plants, and microorganisms. Humans have to confront this reality that cannot be ignored. Taking account of the particularities of human capacities from a moral point of view, in comparison with and in relation to other living species, humans have a preeminent position within the biosphere. Humans therefore have a to carefully manage this Earth, not as the owner but just as the manager. There is an interdependence that must be addressed for survival of all species including humans. International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology http:www.irjmst.com Page 177