by David Suzuki

Every Earth Day (April 22), television stations around North America send out crews looking for some sort of "earthy" thing to cover. It's a well-meaning gesture to the environment, but unfortunately it can trivialize some of society's most important issues. To be truly effective, we must consider environmental consequences as part of everything we do.

Far too often, such considerations are still portrayed in the media in a simplistic "spotted owls versus loggers" dichotomy. That may make for a good story, but it's also a false one. We don't have to choose between protecting the environment and having a strong economy. The reality is that natural goods and services are required to fuel our economy. They also keep us alive.

In the coming years, humanity's growing population and increasing demand for natural resources will put more and more pressure on the natural world. This pressure has already created the highest rate of species extinction since the age of the dinosaurs. But why should we value a diversity of life on Earth? Why are more species better than fewer species?

The answers to these questions are crucial to understand if we are to live within the planet's capacity to absorb our impact and still maintain a high quality of life. Ecologists use the term "biodiversity" to describe genetic, species, and ecosystem variation, and it is vital to our survival. Humans rely heavily on a tremendous variety of species of plants and animals and all the "services" they provide.

From the bevy of bees and other insects that pollinate our food crops and flowering plants, to crucial chemical compounds derived from various organisms, to creating soil and providing a gene pool for domestic crops, we depend on nature. Healthy forests, for example, not only provide lumber, wild game, medicinal plants and shade for fish streams, but they also cleanse our drinking water, regulate weather patterns, and store carbon that would otherwise enter the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. In addition, they provide recreation and tourism opportunities, and aesthetic beauty.

Coral reefs, which contain the highest levels of biodiversity found anywhere on the planet, may harbour in excess of three million different species. Yet scientists have only studied about 10 per cent of them. In a recent edition of the journal Ecosystem Health, Walter H. Adey of the Smithsonian Institution points out that this high density of life intensifies competition among species, which increases the likelihood and ability of organisms to create a variety of chemicals, for both offensive and defensive purposes, that may also have "pharmacological value" to people.

In other words, reef organisms may harbour a wealth of chemical compounds and other services that could lead to important new drugs or medical treatments. But coral reefs around the world are currently undergoing an unprecedented decline. Overfishing, dredging, and global warming are taking their toll. Some scientists have suggested that 70 pe rcent of the world's coral reefs may be destroyed within 40 years. And as Adey says: "Since coral reef organisms have a large potential for providing exotic antiviral, antibiotic, anti-cancer compounds, among numerous pharmacological possibilities, this is likely to have a serious impact on the potential for maintaining and improving future human health."

The drive to produce enough food for our growing population poses yet another threat to biodiversity and natural services. A study in the journal Science last week pointed out that in the next 50 years, agricultural land will need to expand greatly to feed an expected additional three billion people. That farmland will be carved out of forests, grasslands and wetlands, and result in "a worldwide loss of natural ecosystems larger than the United States." Celebrating Earth Day is a fine gesture, but our environmental problems have long outgrown a single annual day of awareness. If we are to seriously address these problems, and we must, we need much more than the occasional soundbite.

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