TO LOSE one species may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose any more of the
remaining 3214 rare and endangered plant species in the US could mean throwing
away a fortune.
In the first study to put a price on this vanishing vegetation, Brien
Meilleur of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St Louis and Oliver Phillips of the
University of Leeds estimate that rare plants in the US could be worth billions
of dollars a year. 鈥淭he public tends to think we are losing oddities that might
be interesting but don鈥檛 have much impact on society,鈥� says Phillips. 鈥淭hese
figures contradict that.鈥�
Phillips and Meilleur compiled a comprehensive database of plants used for
foods, animal fodder, timber, medicine and other products. They then looked at
which of the US rarities belonged to the same genus as one of these useful
plants鈥攁 good indicator of their economic potential. Close relatives of
medicinal plants, for example, are likely to produce similar, perhaps more
potent, versions of the active ingredient. And wild relatives of crop plants are
a repository of genes that could be used to improve today鈥檚 varieties.
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The survey revealed that 80 per cent of America鈥檚 threatened plants belong to
a genus that includes at least one, and often many, useful species (Economic
Botany, vol 52, p 57). 鈥淏iotechnology makes it easier to move genes around,
so wild relatives could make more of a contribution to the cultivated ones in
future,鈥� says Phillips.
Some of the wild species in the US have already shown their potential.
American grapevines saved Europe鈥檚 wine industry from the ravages of the
root-sucking phylloxera louse late last century. The hybrid sunflower grown
throughout the US is a product of breeding with wild Helianthus
species, which have given the crop its improved yields and resistance to fungi.
Yet 12 wild varieties of Helianthus are in trouble in the southern
US.
While putting a precise value on the economic potential of endangered plants
is almost impossible, Phillips and Meilleur made their estimate from the sales
of crops with rare wild relatives鈥攁ssuming that the rarities could be just
as valuable. This gave them a figure of $9 billion a year for the US
market alone. 鈥淏ut putting a dollar figure on plants is less important than
demonstrating how many of them have the potential to be important economically,鈥�
says Meilleur.
鈥淪pecies should not be allowed to go extinct anyway,鈥� says Mark Collins of
the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. 鈥淏ut the economic
argument should help to persuade those who hold sway over resources for
conservation that matters should be taken more seriously.鈥�