Q.Describe the consumptive use value of biodiversity as food, drugs and medicines, fuel and fiber with suitable examples.
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Biodiversity provides direct consumptive value to humans through food, drugs and medicines, fuel, and fibre — tangible products harvested and used daily, forming the foundation of human survival and economic activity. This is what the chapter calls the "narrowly utilitarian" argument for conserving biodiversity.
The consumptive use value of biodiversity refers to the direct, tangible benefits people derive from harvesting or using biological resources — eating a fruit, burning firewood, weaving cotton into cloth. This is the oldest and most immediate way humans interact with biodiversity.
Food is the most fundamental consumptive use. All our food — plant or animal — comes from biodiversity: cereal crops (rice, wheat, maize), pulses, vegetables, fruits, and animal products (fish, meat, dairy) are all direct products of biological diversity. The wild relatives of crop plants also carry genetic traits — disease resistance, drought tolerance — that plant breeders draw on to improve cultivated varieties.
Drugs and medicines represent another critical consumptive use. The chapter states directly: "More than 25 per cent of the drugs currently sold in the market worldwide are derived from plants and 25,000 species of plants contribute to the traditional medicines used by native peoples around the world." This is a vast, largely untapped reservoir — losing a plant species can mean losing a potential future medicine before it is ever discovered.
The loss of biodiversity means losing potential future medicines. Many species have not yet been screened for medicinal properties, so each extinction could mean losing a cure for a disease.
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