i. Economic benefits. The most politically appealing and economically attractive argument in favor of maintaining biodiversity is that, it provides enormous direct economic benefits in the form of food, timber, medicines, industrial raw materials (McNeely, 1988). Tropical rain forest produce timber as well as other range of plant and animal products. Genetic richness of wild plants is indispensable for developing new agricultural and medicine varieties. In addition many countries earn substantial foreign exchange from natural ecosystems with touristic values.
ii. Services to Humanity. Biodiversity supplies the working ingredients for natural ecosystems that provide an array of essential services to humanity: protection of watersheds, cleansing of the air, degrading the wastes, recycling nutrients, generation and maintenance of soils, controlling diseases, regulating hydro logical cycles, modifying climatic extremes and so on.
iii. Ethical and aesthetic justifications. Despite the fact that they are the least quantifiable, for many people ethical and aesthetic arguments favor of biodiversity conservation are the most compelling of all. The ethical viewpoint is that plants and animals have an intrinsic value that is independent of their value to humanity and therefore, that monetary valuations are not the most appropriate criteria on which to base biodiversity conservation decisions.Aesthetic justification is that many species of wild plants and animals, and the ecosystems, of which they are integral parts, are a source of irreplaceable wonder, spirituality and inspiration to humanity
marto answered the question on March 20, 2019 at 11:03
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