RE: Shifts, drifts and options - A response to Faith

Abstract

Daniel Faith makes several very good points. We deal with only one of them in this short response, the role of biodiversity as a source of options for people now and in the future. We agree with Faith that biodiversity at all scales, from local to global, is critically important for humans in the face of the unknown, and for the future production of nature’s contributions to people (NCP). We also agree that NCP in the face of the unknown should include both those associated with particular components of biodiversity, and those related to the continued existence of the variety of life. One of our categories of NCP indeed addresses these two aspects. “Maintenance of options” (NCP 18 within the generalizing perspective, Table S1) refers to the capacity of ecosystems, habitats, species or genotypes to keep options open in order to support a good quality of life. This includes the future benefits or threats derived from particular genes, organisms, groups of organisms or ecosystems, be they still unknown or already known but their future uses as yet undiscovered. NCP 18 also includes the contributions of all species, populations and genotypes to processes for coping with environmental uncertainty, such as the resilience and resistance of ecosystems in the face of environmental change and variability. Finally, it recognises future benefits or threats that may be anticipated from ongoing biological evolution, including rapid contemporary evolution. Using the eloquent metaphor of Faith et al., the existing global variety of life is a “storehouse”, and the on-going evolutionary process is a “factory” of new benefits and threats; both are included in the NCP framework. The NCP approach also seeks to integrate the various ways in which nature keeps our options open through the lens of other knowledge systems (context-specific perspective), from contributing to food autonomy at the household and local levels, to mutual enhancement of regional crop diversity and social networks, to the deliberate dispersal along “song-lines” of nutritious non-cultivated species enhancing the liveability of forests for future generations.