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Biodiversity Dilemmas
Protecting biodiversity often requires making difficult choices. This activity encourages thinking about some of the tough decisions that society faces in setting priorities for conservation.
Teacher guidelines:
- Decide how you want your students to work on these dilemmas. They can work in small groups or individually, and they can work on the same or different dilemmas (four are provided). Depending on how you want to run the activity, make an appropriate number of copies.
- Instruct your students to read their dilemmas carefully and answer the questions that follow. They may need to do some research to answer the questions. You should point out that the dilemmas provided here are very brief and cannot possibly address all of the opinions and emotions of the people affected by the situations. For this reason, it is important that your students identify what further information they feel that they should know to help them draw conclusions or make recommendations.
Dilemmas
- You are the director of a new botanical garden,
and your garden has just received a large donation to create an exhibit.
Some of our colleagues are recommending that you use the money to create
a display of prize-winning roses. However, your conservation director
is urging you to consider making a display of plants native to your
region. Many of the people on the selection committee have argued that
native plants may be important but that several of these species are
not as attractive and showy as the plants people expect to see at your
garden. Answer the following questions: A) What would be the benefits
of creating each type of display? B) What other alternatives could you
propose? C) What do you think people expect to see when they visit a
botanical garden? D) Why do you think native plants might not be given
much attention in some gardens? E) What are some of the ways that botanical
gardens can educate people about the importance of native plants? What
is your local garden doing?
- Plans are underway to build a new swimming pool in your neighborhood. A site has been chosen that will be safe for kids arriving by bike and will provide enough space for an Olympic-sized pool. However, the state biologist has just issued a report that there is a small population of a very rare native plant on this site. Your community has already gone through a lengthy process to choose a site that would meet its needs, and some people are upset that plans might be changed because of a handful of plants. People have suggested building around the plants or moving them to a safer area, but others worry that destroying the habitat could cause irreversible damage since the plants only grow under certain soil conditions. Answer the following questions: A) Who is potentially affected by this dilemma and how? B) What would your community gain by saving the plants? C) What else do you need to know to make the decision about whether or not you agree with the plans to build a pool on the site? D) Would you feel differently if there were an endangered animal rather than a rare plant on the site? Why or why not?
- We have improved most of our crops so that they grow fast, stay fresh for long periods of time, and look appealing. However, in the process of breeding crops for these traits, many food plants have lost the genetic diversity characteristic of their wild, uncultivated relatives. This can have tragic consequences. In 1970, a scientist in Florida found that a previously minor disease was destroying corn crops. By the end of the year, the disease had spread to Texas and Minnesota and had ruined $1 billion worth of corn. It turned out that 80 percent of the corn in the U.S. carried a gene making it susceptible to the virus. In this case and many others, incorporating genes from wild plants into crop species through selective breeding is needed to fight diseases and pests. Many native U.S. plants are important for this reason. To name one example, disease resistant root stock from wild U.S. grape plants was used to save the European grape industry from a pest outbreak at the end of the nineteenth century. Do the following exercise: A) List five ways in which your life would be different if the world’s tomato crops were suddenly decimated by a disease. Do the same for wheat, corn, and potatoes. B) Answer the following question: Why do you think wild species are more effective at fighting diseases and pests than cultivated one?
- Almost all the native plants on the Hawaiian islands occur nowhere else on Earth, and most are defenseless against introduced species such as pigs. Pigs that were once brought to these islands from elsewhere in Polynesia and Europe have since escaped and turned wild (or “feral”). As they multiplied rapidly, the pigs have destroyed native vegetation, caused soil erosion, eaten bird eggs and nestlings, spread weeds and diseases, and polluted water supplies. Hawaii has already lost two-thirds of its original forests and half its native birds, and saving the remaining native species and habitats is now a race against time. To curb feral pigs, conservationists have used fencing, hunting, live trapping, and as a last resort, snares. However, many people feel that it is unethical to kill pigs with snares when humans were the ones who brought them to Hawaii in the first place. Answer the following questions: A) Who is potentially affected by this dilemma and how? B) What are the consequences of killing versus not killing the pigs? C) What alternatives could there be to the methods described? D) What else do you need to know to decide how you feel about the dilemma?