National Security

Many experts believe that the increasing competition for fresh water, food and arable land will lead to civil instabilities, mass migrations and conflict around the world. Additionally, many of the world’s remaining natural areas are located in remote and poorly governed regions. Without good management, some of these areas have become refuges for the drug trade and other illegal activities as well as strongholds for terrorist groups who transit easily through poorly controlled wilderness areas.  Learn More

Human Health and Welfare

Tropical rainforests, coral reefs, and other wild landscapes around the world provide the ingredients for life-savings drugs that help people survive cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases.  Overall, about one-quarter of all prescription drugs, and more than 50% of the new drugs introduced in the past 25 years are derived from natural sources.  Learn More

Food Security

Plant breeding programs using genetic enhancements from wild relatives of agricultural crops have helped feed billions of people around the world and are valued at an estimated $115 billion per year. More than three-quarters of fish stocks that are a significant source of protein for two billion people are fully or over exploited.  Wild species such as birds and insects provide $100 billion worth of pest control services to world agriculture every year. Wild animals pollinate two-thirds of the agricultural crop species that feed the world, contributing $200 billion a year to world agriculture. Learn More

Water

One-third of the developing world’s 66 largest cities (500 million people) obtain a significant proportion of their drinking water directly from conserved natural watersheds.  Almost 3 billion people live in areas affected by severe water stress.  Increasing water scarcity is expected to limit food production, increase food prices and add to the number of people suffering from hunger around the world. Learn More

Poverty Alleviation

The income, credit, savings and social security for more than a billion of the world’s poorest people are not in any bank or government treasury but in the fields, trees, streams and wildlife around them.  Learn More

Biodiversity Loss

Biodiversity, or the number and abundance of species, directly affects human populations.  One-quarter of all pharmaceutical drugs are derived from natural sources including plant and animal species.  Wild relatives of agricultural crops have provided genetic enhancements used in plant breeding programs that have helped feed billions of people around the world and are valued at an estimated $115 billion per year.  The earth’s multitude of species also provides direct food security for the one billion of the world’s poorest people who are directly dependent on local natural resources for survival.  Fresh and salt water fish species, as well as wild terrestrial foods such as diverse fruits, starchy vegetables, honey, and native wildlife are key nutrition sources in many developing countries.   

Public health

Natural ecosystems serve as a buffer between wildlife and human populations, minimizing the transmission of animal-borne infectious diseases such as AIDS.   Avian flu, originating in the wild, has cost the world economy more than $10 billion and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) more than $30 billion.

Disaster Prevention

Small investments in conservation can mean less disaster assistance. Forests absorb and hold water, preventing both catastrophic flooding and severe droughts. Healthy coral reefs reduce the impact of large storms on coastal populations, a protective function valued at $9 billion a year.

U.S. Competitiveness

Responsible U.S. companies are being undercut by illegal logging, fishing and mining around the world.  Illegal trade in the these resources floods the international market with low-cost products, and threatens imperiled ecosystems and rare species. If there were no illegal producers, the U.S. would be able to increase its exports of wood products by about $460 million per year. The U.S. forest, paper, fishing and mining industries have called for greater efforts to advance conservation that can crack down on illegal resource extraction.