Lesson 3- Products of the Biosphere

‘Evaluate the importance of different biospheres to provide humans with a range of goods (food, medicine, raw materials and energy)’ – Geog-B spec pg.14

All the biomes of the earth are unique and as such all have different products to offer us. Products can be divided into:

Goods – tangible products and items sourced from the biome for survival or commercial use. e.g. Rubber or Coffee
Services – measures the biome takes to serve the planet. e.g. regulating the composition of the atmosphere, maintaining the health of the soil.

Ecosytems NPP — Global Biome Productivity (NPP). The Rainforest is the most productive biome and has the greatest biodiversity.

As environmental conditions vary greatly the productivity of biomes also changes across the earth’s surface. This can be referred to as a biomes NPP (net primary productivity). Tropical Rainforests have the greatest productivity (as shown below) of all the global biomes largely due to receiving the most suns energy (known as insolation) which is the major driving factor (due to photosynthesis).

global insolation — Global Insolation (the amount of solar radiation reaching a given area.)

The rainforest is responsible for a great many “goods” used on a global scale. Examples of these can be found in the following table. This products all have a global value.

One of the most obvious ‘goods’ from the rainforest is foods.

Yams, coffee, chocolate, banana, mango, papaya, macadamia, avocado, and sugar cane all originally came from the tropical rainforest and are still mostly grown on plantations in regions that were formerly primary forest.

In the mid-1980s and 90s, 40 million tons of bananas were consumed worldwide each year, along with 13 million tons of mango. Central American coffee exports were worth US$3 billion in 1970. Much of the genetic variation used in evading the damage caused by new pests is still derived from resistant wild stock found in tropical rainforests.

Trans National Companies such as Del Monte and Chiquita bought up large areas of land in countries such as Costa Rica to take advantage of the opportunities.

Tropical forests have supplied 250 cultivated kinds of fruit, compared to only 20 for temperate forests. Forests in New Guinea alone contain 251 tree species with edible fruits, of which only 43 had been established as cultivated crops by 1985.

Another valuable commodity from the rainforest is timber.

Many types of wood used for furniture, flooring, and construction are harvested from tropical forests in Africa, Asia, and South America. By buying certain wood products, people in places like the United States and Europe are directly contributing to the destruction of rainforests. Examples of this wood include mahogany and iroko.

Local people often rely on harvesting wood from rainforests for firewood and building materials. In the past such practices were not particularly damaging to the ecosystem because there were relatively few people. Today, however, in areas with large human populations the sheer number of people collecting wood from a rainforest can be extremely damaging. In the 1990s, for example, the forests around the refugee camps in Central Africa (Rwanda and Congo) were virtually stripped of all trees in some areas.
While logging can be carried out in a manner that reduces damage to the environment, most logging in the rainforest is very destructive. Large trees are cut down and dragged through the forest, while access roads open up remote forest areas to agriculture by poor farmers.

Research has found that the number of species found in logged rainforest is much lower than the number found in untouched or “primary” rainforest. Many rainforest animals cannot survive in the changed

The rainforest provides us with much more than just these goods. The following section will now outline some of the different services the rainforests provide for us.

Atmospheric Regulation

The biosphere is a vital carbon store. Trees absorb Carbon dioxide and release oxygen. The equivalent of three football pitches is cut down every minute which equals are area the same size as the UK every year.

This rate of deforestation means that no only will we use a vital source of oxygen in the atmosphere but will also have impacts of climate change. As deforestation occurs, more carbon will be released through the burning of wood and less will be absorbed. This means that CO2 levels in the atmosphere will increase rapidly thus exacerbating the impacts of climate change further.

The world’s forests remove over one quarter of current annual human carbon emissions from the atmosphere each year, the equivalent of about 2.4 billion tonnes of carbon according to the latest published scientific research.

In 2009 a total of 8.4 billion tonnes of carbon was emitted by humans to the atmosphere – about 30.8 billion tonnes CO2. (1 tonne of carbon is equivalent to 3.67 tonnes of CO2).

Each year about 26 percent of CO2 emissions are absorbed by the world’s oceans, 47 percent accumulate in the atmosphere; and 27 percent are absorbed in the world’s forests and to a much

Medicines

Scattered pockets of native peoples around the world have known about the healing properties of rainforest plants for centuries and perhaps longer. But only since World War II has the modern world begun to take notice, and scores of drug companies today work in tandem with conservationists, native groups and various governments to find, catalog and synthesize rainforest plants for their medicinal value.

Some 120 prescription drugs sold worldwide today are derived directly from rainforest plants. And according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, more than two-thirds of all medicines found to have cancer-fighting properties come from rainforest plants. Examples abound. Ingredients obtained and synthesized from a now-extinct periwinkle plant found only in Madagascar (until deforestation wiped it out) have increased the chances of survival for children with leukemia from 20 percent to 80 percent.

Some of the compounds in rainforest plants are also used to treat malaria, heart disease, bronchitis, hypertension, rheumatism, diabetes, muscle tension, arthritis, glaucoma, dysentery and tuberculosis, among other health problems. And many commercially available anesthetics, enzymes, hormones, laxatives, cough mixtures, antibiotics and antiseptics are also derived from rainforest plants and herbs.
Despite these success stories, less than one percent of the plants in the world’s tropical rainforests have even been tested for their medicinal properties. Environmentalists and health care advocates alike are keen to protect the world’s remaining rainforests as storehouses for the medicines of the future.

Water Management

Vegetation, especially trees are vital in various stages of the water cycle.

Flora intercepts rainfall increasing the lag time (time between the maximum rainfall and the peak flow of the river). This helps reduce the risk of flash flooding.

Vegetation roots greatly assistance in ‘anchoring’ the soil in place. Areas that have experienced deforestation often lose their nutrient rich topsoil and are no longer able to support life. Often this soil is washed into rivers which can increase the water temperature making it harder for fish to survive.

Vegetation is also responsible for filtering water. They remove many microorganisms that otherwise reduce the clarity of the water. Newer forests are better are cleaning the water than older forests and younger trees can filter out nearly all of the nitrogen and phosphorus leaving the water nearly pollution free.

THESE SERVICES ARE ALL VITAL TO OUR SURVIVAL LEADING TO THE PHRASE– ‘The biosphere is our Life Support System’