Nine Important Benefits We Get from the Biodiversity are briefly discussed below:
Benefits
(i) Consumptive and productive values:
Fruits, vegetables, beverages and a wide array of food products are derived from biodiversity as they originate from living environment. Medicines, fertilizers, fibres, rubbers and number of other products obtained from or derived from living environment have consumptive and productive values.
Image Source: careerealism.com
(ii) Non-consumptive values:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Soil formation and protection of soil from erosion, carbon fixing through photosynthesis etc. are number of values that are having very important role for providing suitable conditions for living organisms.
(iii) Recreational and aesthetic values:
People enjoy fishing, camping, and other wildlife- related recreation activities. Contact with nature is ecologically and emotionally restorative.
(iv) Medicinal values:
According to the World Health Organization, 80 percent of the world’s people depend on natural products based medicine for healthy life.
(v) Pest control values:
Selected species from nature have very important use for controlling pests. For this gene bank or natural biota must be preserved.
(vi) Agricultural values
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Apart from wheat, maize, and rice which fulfill about 60% of global food demands, thousands of plant species existing in nature could be utilized by humans as food.
(vii) Intrinsic values:
Whenever something has a value for it’s our sake, we say, it has intrinsic value. It means, it does not have to be useful to man to possess that value. For example, animals and plants have unique intrinsic value attached to them.
(viii) Instrumental values:
A species or individual organism has instrumental value if its existence or use, benefits some other entity. Millions of people draw sustenance and income directly from forests, grasslands and fisheries.
(ix) Ecological values
Solar energy absorption, nutrient cycling, air and water purification, soil formation, food production, waste disposal and number of other ecological services depend on biodiversity. They are all very essential for the humans, animals, plants, etc.