China’s biodiversity takes a beating

China has one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world, yet its number of species is declining at a frightening rate. The Swiss-based IUCN picked out mainland China, along with Mexico, Brazil

and Australia, as being homes to “particularly large numbers of threatened” animals and plants. Worldwide, it listed 16,306 species as being under threat – almost 800 of them in China.

But it’s not just animal lovers and environmentalists who should be worried about the trend, argue conservation groups. Beijing should be concerned about the heavy economic costs linked to biodiversity loss and the fact that its political infrastructure is ill-equipped to halting that trend.
“The loss of biodiversity in the short term can be seen as worth it for the gain in the economy,” said WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) China’s head of conservation strategies, Li Lin. “However, in the long term, the loss of biodiversity ends up as a loss of human wealth – the whole wealth of the country.”

As a way of putting a price on biodiversity, scientists and environmental non-governmental organizations have coined the term “ecosystem services”. Simply put, ecosystem services are such benefits as food sources, clean air and water, and the regulation of climate that are provided by “nature” and are essential for people’s well-being.

“It’s difficult to calculate the value of these services,” said Seth Cook, IUCN’s China program coordinator. “But in 1995, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development Biodiversity Working Group … estimated that the benefits and services provided by China’s biodiversity were worth between US$255 billion and $410 billion per year.” That’s about 10-15% of China’s 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.7 trillion.

“Whatever number value you put on China’s biodiversity, it’s clear that it supports the country’s rapid economic development and the lives of its citizens,” Cook said.

Certain industries, such as tourism, Chinese medicine, fishing, agriculture and logging, pay a more direct price for species loss, he said.

Asia Times