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BUGS, BEARS, AND BACTERIA
Date: 10 Jun 2004
From: "Carol Banhart" {carol@njconservation.org}
THE STATE WE'RE IN
By Michele S. Byers, Executive Director
New Jersey Conservation Foundation
June 9, 2004 - Volume XXXIV, No. 23
When you hear that a plant or animal is endangered, do you think,
"Why should I care?" After all, aren't people more important than
Spotted Owls, Piping Plovers, or some weed?
But what if the earth's biodiversity - the enormous variety of
plants, animals, fungi, microbes - is critical to our long-term health
and sustainability?
For the first time, we are cataloging the many ways biodiversity is
critical to our health. Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and
Global Environment has completed a summary of their Biodiversity: Its
Importance to Human Health project. The full report is an ambitious
attempt to collect and organize all we know about how the environment
benefits people.
"Ecosystem services" are the things we take for granted, like plants
producing oxygen and filtering the air we breathe, or soil filtering
the groundwater we drink. In fact, the study goes much deeper, citing
18 different `ecosystem services' that nature not only does for free,
but does better than the artificial ways we conduct the same services.
Biodiversity even helps protect us from infectious diseases like Lyme
disease. One reason Lyme disease is so prevalent in the northeast is
that development has altered the ecosystem. Medium-sized predators
like weasels and snakes have declined due to habitat fragmentation,
leaving thriving populations of small animals, like the mice and
voles, who host Lyme carrying ticks.
In addition to preventing disease, nature is also our best medicine
chest. For example, it's estimated there are approximately 500
different species of cone snails producing as many as 50,000 different
peptide toxins. Only .2-percent of these have been thoroughly
researched, but they have already yielded potential new medicines
including a non-addictive pain killer 1000 times more potent than
morphine (in Stage III clinical trials), a whole spectrum of anti-
epileptic agents, and drugs to help victims of stroke and spinal cord
and head injuries, as well as early diagnosis and treatment of some
cancers.
All this from just a few of the substances provided by ONE snail
family: wow. Yet in the Hawaiian Islands alone, dozens of species of
land snails have been driven to extinction by introduced predators and
habitat loss.
Plants, animals and microbes are also very valuable to medical
research, and not just as test subjects. For example, the way polar
bears regulate insulin and metabolize glucose and fat may provide
researchers with insights useful for fighting Type II diabetes, which
has grown to near epidemic levels.
Even our food is dependant on biodiversity, both directly and
indirectly. Food itself comes in many forms such as crops, livestock
and fish. In addition, countless species, from microbial bacteria and
fungi to small rodents, work underground to sustain rich farmland
soils.
The bottom line is that the entire sum of all our research and
science over the entire course of human history only scratches the
surface of the natural world potential. When we strive to protect the
earth's fragile beauty and richness, it is not only because we humans
ought to be good stewards of the planet. It is also because the
`insignificant' plants or animals we save could someday be the key to
saving us.
You can get your own sense of the importance of biodiversity by
reading the Summary at http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/resources.html.
And I hope you'll contact me at 1-888-LAND-SAVE or
info@njconservation.org, or visit NJCF's website at
http://www.njconservation.org, for more information about conserving
New Jersey's precious land and natural resources.
Date: 10 Jun 2004
From: "Carol Banhart" {carol@njconservation.org}
THE STATE WE'RE IN
By Michele S. Byers, Executive Director
New Jersey Conservation Foundation
June 9, 2004 - Volume XXXIV, No. 23
When you hear that a plant or animal is endangered, do you think,
"Why should I care?" After all, aren't people more important than
Spotted Owls, Piping Plovers, or some weed?
But what if the earth's biodiversity - the enormous variety of
plants, animals, fungi, microbes - is critical to our long-term health
and sustainability?
For the first time, we are cataloging the many ways biodiversity is
critical to our health. Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and
Global Environment has completed a summary of their Biodiversity: Its
Importance to Human Health project. The full report is an ambitious
attempt to collect and organize all we know about how the environment
benefits people.
"Ecosystem services" are the things we take for granted, like plants
producing oxygen and filtering the air we breathe, or soil filtering
the groundwater we drink. In fact, the study goes much deeper, citing
18 different `ecosystem services' that nature not only does for free,
but does better than the artificial ways we conduct the same services.
Biodiversity even helps protect us from infectious diseases like Lyme
disease. One reason Lyme disease is so prevalent in the northeast is
that development has altered the ecosystem. Medium-sized predators
like weasels and snakes have declined due to habitat fragmentation,
leaving thriving populations of small animals, like the mice and
voles, who host Lyme carrying ticks.
In addition to preventing disease, nature is also our best medicine
chest. For example, it's estimated there are approximately 500
different species of cone snails producing as many as 50,000 different
peptide toxins. Only .2-percent of these have been thoroughly
researched, but they have already yielded potential new medicines
including a non-addictive pain killer 1000 times more potent than
morphine (in Stage III clinical trials), a whole spectrum of anti-
epileptic agents, and drugs to help victims of stroke and spinal cord
and head injuries, as well as early diagnosis and treatment of some
cancers.
All this from just a few of the substances provided by ONE snail
family: wow. Yet in the Hawaiian Islands alone, dozens of species of
land snails have been driven to extinction by introduced predators and
habitat loss.
Plants, animals and microbes are also very valuable to medical
research, and not just as test subjects. For example, the way polar
bears regulate insulin and metabolize glucose and fat may provide
researchers with insights useful for fighting Type II diabetes, which
has grown to near epidemic levels.
Even our food is dependant on biodiversity, both directly and
indirectly. Food itself comes in many forms such as crops, livestock
and fish. In addition, countless species, from microbial bacteria and
fungi to small rodents, work underground to sustain rich farmland
soils.
The bottom line is that the entire sum of all our research and
science over the entire course of human history only scratches the
surface of the natural world potential. When we strive to protect the
earth's fragile beauty and richness, it is not only because we humans
ought to be good stewards of the planet. It is also because the
`insignificant' plants or animals we save could someday be the key to
saving us.
You can get your own sense of the importance of biodiversity by
reading the Summary at http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge/resources.html.
And I hope you'll contact me at 1-888-LAND-SAVE or
info@njconservation.org, or visit NJCF's website at
http://www.njconservation.org, for more information about conserving
New Jersey's precious land and natural resources.
