Industrial Reliance on Biodiversity

Overview of the extent to which industry in the developed world relies on the biodiversity of the developing world. Primitive human societies rely almost entirely on wild species for food, draught, building materials and other products, and such direct use continues in modern society. The first section of the report reviews the direct consumptive use, the largest components of which are fisheries and forestry. The remaining chapters examine two specific industrial inputs where biodiversity serves as an information source: the use of wild genetic resources in plant breeding and the use of substances derived from the wild in the pharmaceutical industry. In economic terms, these two uses have far outweighed the more conventional forms of direct use but this shows that we are still dependent to a large extent on the world's biological riches [author]

Paper is presented as 4 separate documents:

• Chapter 1:contents introduction, etc.
• Chapter 2: wildlife trade
• Chapter 3: biodiversity and the pharmaceutical industry
• Chapter 4: plant breeding