Technological Progress and Biodiversity Conservation: a Dollar Spent, a Dollar Burned

Abstract

synthesis of these two trends is economic growth, an increase in the production and consumption of goods and services. The economic growth occurring within a nation’s borders is typically guaged by gross domestic product (GDP). For the world, we may refer to the size of the human economy as gross global product (GGP). Pursuant to the ecological principle of competitive exclusion, resource consumption by any species increases only at the expense of other species. The scope of competitive exclusion is determined by the breadth of the species’ niche. Due to the tremendous breadth of the human niche, the scale of the human economy ( GGP ) expands at the competitive exclusion of nonhuman species in the aggregate. Growth in GGP occurs via the reallocation of natural capital (water, forests, minerals, etc.) from the “economy of nature”—used here to refer to nonhuman species in the aggregate—to the human economy. This relationship is consistent with the few studies that have analyzed species endangerment explicitly in terms of economic scale and sectors (Czech et al. 2000; Naidoo & Adamowicz 2001 ). It suggests that national and international goals of economic growth and biodiversity conservation are conflicting. However, policymakers throughout the world have denied that this conflict exists, claiming instead that economic growth and biodiversity conservation may be reconciled via technological progress.