Loss of biodiversity - caused and solved by globalisation?

Research question
Are all global environmental problems (for example change in biodiversity) inevitable caused by globalization and moreover in which way is a further (political-) globalization even necessary to respond to this challenge?

Thesis
Loss of biodiversity is an example for a global environmental problem where you can neither say it is directly caused by globalization nor you can say it is not affected by this phenomenon. Moreover a further (political-) globalization in terms of a strengthening of global environmental politics are necessary to respond to global environmental risks in general and loss of biodiversity as an example.

Introduction
There are lots of, more or less theoretical, definitions of globalization, for example: “Globalization (…) can be thought of as the widening, intensifying, speeding up, and growing impact of world-wide interconnectedness.” (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt & Perrat, 2008, p. 2). This phenomenon is accompanied by a wide range of positive as well as negative consequences for humanity in general, society and the environment. One example of an abstract description of the consequences for society was mainly coined by the socialist Ulrich Beck in the mid eighties: The risk-society. When the past was characterized by difficulties of a just distribution of wealth, today in this “second, reflexive modernity” (Gane, 2001, p. 83) the production of wealth comes with the production of risks: It is no longer only a distribution of wealth, as well as a distribution of risks (cf. Gane, 2001, p. 83). A second change related to the distribution of risks is the decreasing of the importance of borders: On the one hand the result of an event takes place in another part of the world and on the other hand a small local event can cause a global reaction (cf. Held et. al., 2008, p. 2). There are lots of economical, social and cultural examples for these phenomena. Because the following text will mainly focus on the environmental issue, the given example is the climate change, facing Copenhagen, probably the most popular one right now. This risk is caused by the production of wealth and will, at least in the beginning, mainly effect the “undeveloped countries”, but furthermore as well the globalization in general (cf. Curtis, 2007).

But because globalization is an abstract, not perfectly defined phenomenon you cannot say every global environmental problem is inevitable directly caused by globalization without a sound argumentation. The following text concentrates on one example of a global environmental risk- sometimes called as a risk of globalization: Loss of biodiversity. To understand the problematic properly a few facts about biodiversity in general will be given in the beginning. Furthermore the loss of biodiversity and the reasons for it will be described. In a third step these causes will be related to globalization. Finally there will be a prospect if even a further (political-) globalization is necessary to solve these problems.

Definition and Distribution
The most common definition on biodiversity or biological diversity was defined on the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, when the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was initiated:

“"Biological diversity" means the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.” (UN, 1993, p. 146).

The following text covers all three dimensions of this definition- genetic, species and ecological diversity. However biodiversity is often equated with the rate of species. Because quantifying the other two dimensions is even harder there will be given just an amount of species- epitomizing the other two: There are different estimations about the whole quantity of species, realistic ones are about 13.5 Millions, but just 1.5 Millions are currently described (cf. Gaston & Spicer, 2004, p. 48; UNEP, 2007, p. 162).

The distribution of this variety is much clearer: In geographic terms biodiversity is concentrated near to the equator- the tropical regions contain at least two thirds of all extant teresstrical species (cf. Gaston & Spicer, 2004, p. 89). In social terms it must be emphasized, that there is a global asymmetry between diversity and material wealth: the major remaining sites for biodiversity conservation lie primly within the developing world (cf. Swanson, 1999, p.312). These two distributions are not related to each other.

Value
Talking about biodiversity loss the value of the variety of life must become clear: On the one hand there is a direct use-value: Consumption or production of marketable commodities: Providing products for example food, medicine, industrial ones, recreation, genetic information for medicine etc.

On the other hand there are indirect use-values, more difficult to quantify: More diverse systems are more resilience in the fact of natural and anthropogenic variations in their environment (cf. Heal, 2002, p. 3). This value stands for itself but is as well related to the main indirect use-value: Ecosystem services- on that all people fundamentally depend. For example: bacteria and microbes that transform waste into usable products or coral reefs and mangroves that protect coastlines (cf. UNEP, 2007, p. 158). In newer times lots of economic science tries to quantify in monetary aspects these ecosystem functions: For example “Honeybees as pollinators for agricultural crops – US$ 2-8 billion/ year” (UNEP, 2007, p. 161).

Apart from these use-values biological diversity may have a variety of non-use values including (cf. Gaston & Spicer, 2004, p.105).
 * optional value (for future use or non-use),
 * bequest value (in passing on a resource to future generations),
 * existence value (value to people irrespective of use or non use)
 * and intrinsic value

Many of the services provided by biodiversity are public goods and it is hardly to imagine if these services go down or cease to apply.

Loss of Biodiversity
On the ecosystem dimension of biodiversity there is already a high degradation: The graphic on the left side illustrates this fact impressively.

In history there where many natural extinction of species (cf. Gaston & Spicer, 2004, pp. 20ff), but the current rates of extinction are estimate to be roughly 100 times higher than typical rates in the fossil record: There are estimations that the increase will be 1000-10.000 times higher in the future (cf. UNEP, 2007, p.164).

Quantifying loss of genetic diversity is difficult, but it is clear that the extinction of species and declines of population lead to a loss of genetic diversity (cf. UNEP, 2007, p. 165).

Causes for this loss of biodiversity are clear: 1. Habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation 2. Invasive alien species 3. Overexploitation 4. Climate change 5. Pollution (cf. UNEP, 2007, p. 169; Gaston & Spicer, 2004, p. 135).

These reasons are undoubted- but in which way they are caused by globalization is discussed in an argumentative manner.

Caused by Globalization?
On the one hand there is the opinion mainly described by Heal that the causes for loss of biodiversity are “[…] global problem[s] but not really a problem of globalization.” (2002, p. 2). He argues that of course the degradation of biodiversity was caused by human activities: For example the habitat loss degradation was a product of the requirement land for housing, growing food and providing firewood. The background of this need was the population growth- but this connection was not caused by globalization: “they are not driven by the expansion of international trade and capital movements, nor the possible cultural homogenization” (2002, p. 1). The same argumentation gives Heal for the climate change as a cause for biodiversity loss: It was driven by economic growth and concomitant increases in energy use, but not directly by globalization (2002, p. 2).

Referring to the reason given above this argumentation illustrates that you cannot say in general globalization caused biodiversity loss. Climate change through use of fossil energy sources, pollution related to production in countries with lower environmental acts, unsustainable satisfaction of energy need, population growth and so on are partly facts of the “wrong” realization of this neutral, abstract phenomenon and partly not related to it.

But you cannot separate globalization and change in biodiversity either: Close to the developing of trade related to globalization there were cultivations of rivers- with a huge impact on the ecosystem and the biodiversity in these parts. Another main reason for the loss of biodiversity are invasive alien species: For example New Zealand lost 40% of it’s own bird species and even 40% more are threatened- since settlers brought their own European species to these countries (cf. Forum Biodiversität, 2002, p. 3). These movements of population and genetic material increase with the development of technology, trade, specialization in agriculture and environment- trade and homogenization in all dimensions (unintentional as well in biodiversity) are main thoughts of globalization (cf. Olorode, 2004, p. 532).

Up to this part the ambivalence between globalization and change of biodiversity become clear. The next part of this text focuses mainly on the solutions or possibilities to this threat- and in which way a further globalization for example in environmental politics is needed to face this challenge.

(Solved by Globalization?)
(Facing these complex environmental problems in the institutional dimension national states and multilateral contracts are important- but obviously not powerful enough. Held et. al. point out that there is no institution “able to amass sufficient political power, domestic support or international authority to do more than limit the worst excesses of some of these environmental threats” (Held et. al., 2008, p. 9). That is why there is the discussion about a World Environment Organization.)

Reference

 * Curtis, F. (2007). Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Globalization: Contradictions of Natural Capital. In Review of Radical Political Economics, 39, 385-390.


 * Forum Biodiversität Schweiz (2002). Hotspot. Biodiversität und invasive Arten. Biodiversität: Forschung und Praxis im Dialog. Retrieved December 5, 2009, from Forum Biodiversität Schweiz’ Web site.


 * Gane, N. (2001). Chasing the ‘Runaway World’: The Politics of Recent Globalization Theory. In Acta Sociologica, 44, 81-89.

''This work is one of the standard ecological literatures for biodiversity in general. It covers all dimension of the topic: The natural-scientific background (species in general, correlations, history) to understand current development and describes this. Through undoubted information the reader gets an overview over the certain insights. It is not the purpose to make a statement to the current discussions.''
 * Gaston, K.J., & Spicer, J.I. (2004). Biodiversity. An Introduction. Malden, USA, Okford, UK, Victoria, AUS: Blackwell Publishing.

''The author is inter alia Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Professor of Finance & Economics at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University and Co-Director of the Earth Institute’s Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development. His text discusses the relation between biodiversity and globalization- with a statement that loss of biodiversity is not caused by globalization; furthermore this globalization is needed to face this challenge. Probably because he is an economic scientist ecological arguments about correlation between species does not occur in his argumentation- and this influences the conclusion.''
 * Heal, G. (2002). Biodiversity and Globalization. Retrived December 2, 2009, from Columbia Business School Web site,.


 * Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perrat, J. (2008). What is Globalization? In What is Globalization? Introduction. Global Transformations website. Retrieved October 31, 2009, from.

''The author works at the Department of Botany at the Obafemi Awolowo Unifersity in Nigeria. Influenced by this background he gives a good, unconventional, illustrative insight through the correlation between biodiversity and poverty, causes and solutions for the problems both themes are threatened by.''
 * Olorode, O. (2004). Biodiversity, Globalisation and Poverty. African Journal of Traditional, Complimentary and Alternative Medicines, Vol. 4, No.4, 532-540. Retrieved December 2, 2009, from.

''Professor Swanson currently holds the Chair in Law & Economics at University College London. His text focuses in an neutral argumentation on the need for a global control of the risk of biodiversity.''
 * Swanson, T. (1999). Why is there a Biodiversity Convention? The International Interest in Centralized Development Planning . International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 75, No. 2, 307-331.

''Final document of the Convention on Biological diversity, signed by more than 150 nations. Fundamental resource for works about Biodiversity.''
 * United Nations (UN) (1993). MULTILATERAL. Convention on biological diversity. Retrieved December 2, 2009, from Convention on Biological Diversity Web site,.

Another fundamental document facing global environmental problems- there are full information almost on every relevant topic- with a main emphasis on the correlation between environment and development.
 * United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2007). Global Environmental Outlook. GEO4. environment for development . Valetta, MLT: Progress Press Ldt.