Economy through Biodiversity

Biological diversity or biodiversity is the collection of different species of organisms (monerans, protistas, fungi, plants, and animals) and the ecosystem containing these species (Department of Environment and Natural Resources, 1997). In Catibog-Sinha and Heaney (2006), biodiversity is defined by the World Wild Fund for Nature as “the wealth of life on earth, the millions of plants, animals and microorganisms, the genes they contain, and the intricate ecosystems they help build into the living environment.” The biological diversity here in the Philippines is rich in terms of number of animal species. In the Philippine waters, about 2,000 fish species are thriving, while there are 960 animal species in which 500 are birds and 167 are mammals. Approximately, there are 78 coral species found in the country out of 500 known corals worldwide. In terms of forest, we have one of the world’s wealthiest forests wherein we have an estimated 12,000 plant species 3,800 of which are endemic (Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development, 1993).
But even though the Philippines’ biodiversity is rich, by looking at its status and by assessing it based on the “degree of disturbance” or the measure of the system’s disorder caused by human, it can be seen that out of the 16 randomly picked ecosystem, only three of them are slightly disturbed while 7 of them are highly disturbed. Because of cutting trees in the