Environment Toolbox (ADI)

Arizona Debate Institute 2008 1
Holbrook Environment Toolbox

Subsidies = Env. Damage................................................................................................................................................3
Subsidies = Env. Protection............................................................................................................................................4
Species – OW Other Env. Harms....................................................................................................................................5
Species – Each Species Key............................................................................................................................................6
Species – Each Species Key............................................................................................................................................7
Species - Keystone Species Critical................................................................................................................................8
Species – Invisible Threshold.........................................................................................................................................9
Species – AT: Non-Unique – Species Down.................................................................................................................10
Species – Hot spots Key................................................................................................................................................11
Species – Extinction......................................................................................................................................................12
Species – Intrinsic value...............................................................................................................................................13
Species – AT Speciation ...............................................................................................................................................14
AT Species – Non-Unique - ↓ Now...............................................................................................................................15
AT Species – AT: Invisible Threshold/Each Species.....................................................................................................16
AT Species – AT: Keystone Species..............................................................................................................................17
AT Species – No Impact - Geographic Diversity/Migration.........................................................................................18
AT Species – No Impact - Tech Solves/Resilience.......................................................................................................19
AT Species –AT: biggest wave of extinctions ..............................................................................................................20
AT Species – AT: Intrinsic worth..................................................................................................................................21
AT Species – Turn: Speciation......................................................................................................................................22
AT Species –Nuclear War = Species Extinction...........................................................................................................23
Biodiversity Hotspots Key............................................................................................................................................24
Biodiversity Loss – Extinction......................................................................................................................................25
Biodiversity Loss – Extinction Impact..........................................................................................................................26
Biodiversity – Extinction Impact..................................................................................................................................27
Biodiversity – Ethical Obligation.................................................................................................................................28
AT Biodiversity – No Ecological Collapse Impact.......................................................................................................29
AT Biodiversity – No Extinction...................................................................................................................................30
Soil Erosion – Kills Species..........................................................................................................................................31
Soil Erosion = Global Warming....................................................................................................................................32
Soil Erosion – ↓ Water Supply......................................................................................................................................33
Soil Erosion – ↓ Food Crops ........................................................................................................................................34
Soil Erosion – ↓ Food Crops ........................................................................................................................................35
Soil Erosion - ↓ Economy.............................................................................................................................................36
Soil Erosion – Impact Outweighs.................................................................................................................................37
AT: Soil Erosion – Impacts Inevitable..........................................................................................................................39
AT: Soil Erosion – Alt Causes.......................................................................................................................................40
Water – Pollution – Multiple Impacts...........................................................................................................................41
Water – Pollution – Biodiversity ..................................................................................................................................42
Water – Pollution – Aquatic Ecosystems......................................................................................................................43
Water - Pollution - Human Survival..............................................................................................................................44
Water – Groundwater Key............................................................................................................................................45
Water –Scarcity - Agriculture........................................................................................................................................47
Water - Scarcity – US Economy...................................................................................................................................48
AT Water – No Scarcity.................................................................................................................................................49
AT Water - War Solved Now........................................................................................................................................50
AT Water - War Empirically Denied............................................................................................................................51
AT Water – No War - People Migrate...........................................................................................................................52
Desertification: Unsustainable Ag Causes....................................................................................................................53
Desertification: Uniqueness – Arable Land Decreasing...............................................................................................54
Desertification: Impact – Large Scale...........................................................................................................................55
Desertification: Impact – War/Laundry List.................................................................................................................56
Desertification: Impact – Biodiversity (I/L).................................................................................................................57
Desertification: Impact – Water Scarcity (I/L)..............................................................................................................58
Desertification: Impact – Global Warming (+) Feedback Cycle...................................................................................59
AT Desertification: Organic Agriculture Now..............................................................................................................60
AT Desertification: Uniqueness – Arable Land Up.......................................................................................................61
AT Desertification: Turn – Prioritizing the Environment.............................................................................................62
AT Desertification: Alt Cause.......................................................................................................................................63
AT Desertification: Abatement Measures Solve...........................................................................................................64
Deforestation – Extinction............................................................................................................................................65
Deforestation – Global Disease Spread/Extinction.......................................................................................................66
Deforestation – Poverty................................................................................................................................................67
Deforestation Good – Economy/Food..........................................................................................................................68
AT Deforestation - Causes Global Cooling...................................................................................................................69
AT – Deforestation Causes Flooding............................................................................................................................70
AT Deforestation - Exaggerated ...................................................................................................................................71
AT Deforestation – No Biodiversity Impact................................................................................................................72
AT Deforestation – Nuclear War = Deforestation.........................................................................................................73
Subsidies = Env. Damage

Griswold, Slivinski, and Preble 6 (Daniel, Direct of the Center for Trade Policy Studies @ the Cato Institute, Stephen, Direct
of Budget Studies @ Cato, and Christopher, Director of Foreign Policy Studies @ Cato, “Six Reasons to Kill Farm Subsidies and Trade Barriers”
CATO Center for Trade Policy Studies, Feb 1 http://www.freetrade.org/node/493)
The distortions and perverse incentives of U.S. agricultural policies have encouraged practices that
damage the environment. Trade barriers and subsidies stimulate production on marginal land, leading
to overuse of pesticides, fertilizers, and other effluents. A central if unstated purpose of American farm
policy is to promote production of commodities that would not be economical under competitive, free
market conditions. This often means emphasizing crops better grown elsewhere, requiring more
chemical assistance.
Overuse of fertilizers and pesticides adds to runoff that pollutes rivers, lakes, and oceans. According to
the World Resources Institute, agriculture is the biggest source of river and lake pollutants in the United
States. A study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that 72 percent of U.S. rivers and 56 percent
of lakes it surveyed suffer from agriculture-related pollution. Areas of the Gulf of Mexico have become "dead
zones" because of the runoff from farms in the Midwest. Even where fertilizers and pesticides are not used
intensively, the mere act of plowing soil eliminates forest and grass cover, leaving soil exposed for
weeks at a time and vulnerable to erosion. Erosion can build up silt in nearby rivers and downstream
lakes.
Domestic sugar protection has maintained a concentration of producers in central Florida who have used up
water from the endangered Florida Everglades while spitting back phosphorous content far above the level
consistent with maintaining the surrounding ecosystem. The high runoff has seriously reduced periphyton,
such as algae, that supports birds and other animal life. Congress has spent billions to repair the damage
caused to the Everglades by the protected sugar industry.
Farm programs also waste scarce water resources, especially in the arid West. Agricultural water
subsidies alone amount to around $2 billion annually, propping up such uneconomical enterprises as
growing cotton in the Arizona desert.
Finally, farm programs crowd out more environmentally friendly land uses by artificially driving up
land prices. A sizeable share of the increased income that protection and subsidies deliver to farms becomes
"capitalized" through higher land values, because the subsidies increase the stream of income that land can
produce. Higher prices for farmland, in turn, render it more expensive to acquire and maintain environmental
preserves, parkland, forests, or other land use alternatives that would be more likely to preserve habitat and
biodiversity. By keeping marginal farmland under cultivation, the government has slowed the trend of
reforestation.
Farm subsidies ravage the environment, contribute to pollution and obesity, and distort
trade.
Bader, 2007
Hans Bader, CEI’s Counsel for Special Projects and Senior Counsel at the Center for Individual Rights. “Bloated
Farm Bill Uses Poor As Bait,” http://www.openmarket.org/2007/10/23/bloated-farm-bill-uses-poor-as-bait. 10-23-
07.
The bloated farm bill making its way through the new Congress is not only a budget-buster. It is chock full of
corporate welfare and environment-ravaging ethanol subsidies, and is seen as contributing to pollution and
obesity on a grand scale. Moreover, it prevents the U.S. from negotiating trade deals that would open up new
markets for our exports, and impoverishes Third World farmers. And that’s just the fairly understated criticism
of the farm bill you read in the liberal Washington Post!
To camouflage its big rip-off of American taxpayers for the benefit of wealthy agribusinesses, the farm bill
contains an increase in food stamp payments, to make it seem like a direly needed safety net for the poor.
Subsidies = Env. Protection

Subsidy program requirements protect the environment
Young 7 (Bob, chief economist for the American Farm Bureau, April 25, http://www.freetrade.org/node/618
Finally, Dan talks about the farm programs as producing environmental degradation. In part because of the
rules a producer must operate under to be eligible to participate in farm programs, and in part
because farmers are the best day-to-day environmental stewards in this country, the average erosion
rate from an acre of farmland has dropped from 7.2 tons in 1982 to 4.7 tons in 2001.Â Wetland
protection has increased sharply and wildlife habitat has expanded significantly. Even on those
disgusting corn acres--the acres that provide the feed for our livestock and are helping with our nation's
energy supply--the nitrogen used to produce a bushel of corn fell from 1.3 pounds in 1983 to 0.94 pounds in
2006.
Species – OW Other Env. Harms

Species extinction represents a greater threat to human survival than pollution, warming,
and thinning of the o-zone layer.
Washington Post 8 (Joby, Warwick, staff writer 7/1/08)

Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the
dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct
in less than 100 years, as a result of habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. (For
details see links below.) A majority of the nation's biologists are convinced that a "mass extinction" of plants
and animals is underway that poses a major threat to humans in the next century, yet most Americans are only
dimly aware of the problem, a poll says. The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet's
gravest environmental worries, surpassing pollution, global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer,
according to the survey of 400 scientists commissioned by New York's American Museum of Natural History.
The poll's release yesterday comes on the heels of a groundbreaking study of plant diversity that concluded
than at least one in eight known plant species is threatened with extinction. Although scientists are divided over
the specific numbers, many believe that the rate of loss is greater now than at any time in history.
"The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past -- including those
[extinctions] related to meteor collisions," said Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and
prominent expert in biological diversity who participated in the museum's survey. [Note: the last mass extinction
caused by a meteor collision was that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.]
Most of his peers apparently agree. Nearly seven out of 10 of the biologists polled said they believed a "mass
extinction" was underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could
disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and
animal habitats. Among the dissenters, some argue that there is not yet enough data to support the view that a mass
extinction is occurring. Many of the estimates of species loss are extrapolations based on the global destruction of
rain forests and other rich habitats. Among non-scientists, meanwhile, the subject appears to have made relatively
little impression. Sixty percent of the laymen polled professed little or no familiarity with the concept of biological
diversity, and barely half ranked species loss as a "major threat." The scientists interviewed in the Louis Harris poll
were members of the Washington-based American Institute of Biological Sciences, a professional society of more
than 5,000 scientists.
Species – Each Species Key

The natural balance of the earth is upset by human activity. Artificial destruction of a
single species could spell the destruction of the planet.
CNN 3 (8/21/03 Strieker, Gary http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html)

(CNN) -- The complex web of life on Earth, what scientists call "biodiversity," is in serious trouble.
"Biodiversity includes all living things that we depend on for our economies and our lives," explained Brooks
Yeager, vice president of global programs at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.
"It's the forests, the oceans, the coral reefs, the marine fish, the algae, the insects that make up the living world
around us and which we couldn't do without," he said. Nearly 2 million species of plants and animals are
known to science and experts say 50 times as many may not yet be discovered. Yet most scientists agree that
human activity is causing rapid deterioration in biodiversity. Expanding human settlements, logging, mining,
agriculture and pollution are destroying ecosystems, upsetting nature's balance and driving many species to
extinction. There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a period of mass extinction not
seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our future
food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water we drink and the air we breathe. Estimates vary,
but extinction is figured by experts to be taking place between 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural "background" extinction. At
the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, world leaders signed a treaty to confront this crisis. But its results have
been disappointing. According to Yeager, "It hasn't been a direct kind of impact that some of us had hoped for." One hundred
eighty-two nations are now parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The United States is the only industrial country that
has failed to ratify it. But there is wide agreement that the treaty has had virtually no impact on continuing mass extinction. The
treaty is more like a political statement than a plan of action, setting very broad goals instead of real targets, and leaving it to
national governments to decide how to reach them.
Artificial extinction of one species guarantees extinction of exponentially more species

whose interconnectedness guarantees total extinction
MSNBC 4 (9/4/04 “Study sees far deeper species extinction http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:qk-

JkBCtr_0J:www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5951649/+species+extinction+environment+single&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us)
Study co-author Heather Proctor, of Canada’s University of Alberta, said in a statement that "what we
found is that with the extinction of a bird, or a mammal or a plant, you aren’t just necessarily wiping out just
one, single species. We’re also allowing all these unsung dependent species to be wiped out as well.” The team
used a mathematical model to look at what's termed "coextinction," adding the study marked the first time
the phenomenon had been quantitatively estimated. Not just mites, lice In many cases, species facing
coextinction tend to be things like mites and lice. But some others are more likely to be missed by humans,
such as a type of butterfly from Singapore that disappeared after the vines that had provided food for its
larvae became extinct. Overall, the researchers said, the loss of one species when a different one becomes
extinct shows how interconnected the world is. “What we wanted to learn was, if the host goes extinct, how
many other species will go with it,” Proctor said. “It would be easy if there were always a one-to-one
relationship with a host and its affiliate; however, not all parasites, for example, are restricted to a single host
species,” Proctor said. “The trick was in trying to determine how many other species could act as hosts and factoring
that degree of dependence into the study.” Beetles, butterflies at risk, too Using their model the group calculated
that extinction of the 6,279 plants listed as threatened or endangered by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature would also result in the loss of 4,672 species of beetles and 136 types of butterfly. Loss
of the 1,194 threatened birds could also mean disappearance of 342 species of lice and 193 types of mites. If
the 114 endangered primates were to go extinct, they said, there could also be the loss of 20 types of
nematodes, 12 lice and nine fungi to depend on the primates. "While coextinction may not be the most important
cause of species extinctions, " the researchers concluded, "it is certainly an insidious one."
Species – Each Species Key

Each species performs a necessary function in its ecosystem-death of any single species can
destroy that ecosystem and the entire planet
NOVA 6 (“Science in the news”
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:iWVZFXPsVK8J:www.science.org.au/nova/010/010key.htm+species+extinction+key+each&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us)
A certain level of biodiversity (biological diversity) is necessary to keep our ecosystems healthy. This is
because each species performs a different function within an ecosystem. For example, some species allow
pollination to occur, some recycle nutrients, some maintain soil fertility. Species interact with each other and
rely on each other. One species may be a source of food for another, or may help keep another's population in
check.
As well as allowing natural ecosystems to function in a healthy manner, biodiversity is important for other
reasons (Box 3: Australia's biodiversity). Extinction has always occurred; the important thing today is that the
rate has greatly accelerated. This increased rate of extinction has already led to unstable ecosystems as well as
to the loss of potentially useful species. For instance plants provide us with all of our food (directly or indirectly),
as well as one-quarter of our medicines. The potential of many plants to supply food, medicines or other
commodities remains unexplored. And what other useful compounds could exist in unknown plants?
Each species is critical to the planet due to its environmental niche. These niches are critical
to ecosystem survival.
Hance 8 (Jeremy, staff writer for “Mongabay”4/29/08 http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:aeWHIJUA9E4J:news.mongabay.com/2008/0429-

hance_biodiv.html+species+extinction+key+each&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us)
Scientists from Brown University have discovered that an ecosystem's productivity is directly linked to
its diversity of plant species. The discovery has granted biodiversity new importance in the fight against
climate change: the more productive the ecosystem the more carbon it captures. "It's a double whammy,"
Osvaldo Sala explained. "We not only are disturbing our planet by putting more carbon into the atmosphere,
but we're reducing the ability of ecosystems to capture and store it." Sala is the director of the Environmental
Change Initiative and the Sloan Lindeman Professor of Biology at Brown. The Brown scientists conducted their
study for six years in Patagonia. They divided an area into ninety plots then began to systematically remove
native species from each plot and chart the changes in the plot's productivity. Productivity dropped as species
were removed. The scientists believe that productivity is linked to the diversity of species because of "niche
complementarity". In other words, in an intact environment each species has evolved its own niche without
interrupting other species' niches. This harmony between species allows them to positively interact with each
other and fully utilize the resources of a given space. In the experiments "the water is the same, the nitrogen is the
same, the sunlight is the same, what is different is the diversity of the plants," said Sala. Artificial landscapes proved
far less productive than natural ones. According to the paper: "In contrast [with artificial landscapes] natural
ecosystems presented mature individuals, populations, and species coexisting for long periods of time in natural
soils without chemical treatments and low artificial disturbance regimes."
Species - Keystone Species Critical

Loss of a keystone species leads to ecosystem collapse
Prugh, Costanza, Cumberland 99(Thomas, Robert, John H. Natural Capital and Human Economic
Survival. CRC Press, 1999. Pg 58)
The relationship of biodiversity to ecosystem stability is more complex and contentious among ecologists.
For one thing, there are several different definitions of stability (Holling, 1973). In one view, stability means
resilience: the ability of an ecosystem to recover when perturbed. As we noted earlier, some ecologists argue
that higher biodiversity imparts greater resilience, so that when an ecosystem harbors many different
species performing the same functions – such as photosynthesis, nitrogen fixation (making nitrogen
available to plants, a job performed by certain bacteria) or decomposition – the system is more likely to
survive even when one or more species is los, because the function can still be carried out by other
species. Species-poor ecosystems may lack this redundancy and are thus more likely to be vulnerable to
perturbation, even if the particular species involved are individually hardy. However, the progressive loss of
species can overwhelm the resiliency of even highly biodiverse ecosystems, as the efficiency of the
operation of the food web declines and nutrient flows are attenuated. The loss of a keystone species can
lead to the ecosystem’s collapse and even change its physical structure.
Keystone species are vital to ecosystem viability

Scudder 2k (G.G.E, Professor, Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Conserving Nature’s
Biodiversity: insights from biology, ethics and economics, eds. Van Kooten, Bulte and Sinclair, p. 24-5)
A second model asserts that there are certain species that are crucial for ecosystem structure and
function. This is the basis of the keystone hypothesis developed by Paine from research on the role of the
sea star in the Washington rocky inter-tidal ecosystem. Such keystone species have a prominence in
ecosystem function that is much greater than would be expected on the basis of their relative
abundance within the ecosystem. Keystone species have now been detected in a broad array of ecosystems,
taxa, trophic levels, and ecological processes (Power et al, 1996). They occur in all of the world’s major
ecosystems, and are not always of high trophic status (Powers et al. 1996). They can exert effects, not only
through the commonly known mechanisms of consumption, but also through such interactions and a process
as competition, mutualism, dispersal, pollination, disease, and by modifying habitats and abiotic factors.
Although there is lack of a well-developed protocol for identifying potential keystone species, comparative
experimental studies have shown that not every ecosystem has keystone species. Furthermore, even in
those that do, they may not always maintain a keystone role either in time or space.
Species – Invisible Threshold

Loss of even one species can push an ecosystem over the invisible threshold which results in
its destruction
Earth’s tree news 7 (Livejournal, 206 edition

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:tOuV0Sbbt3YJ:olyecology.livejournal.com/54410.html+biodiversity+%22Invisible+threshold%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl
=us)
We lived in cloud forest when we first arrived," Mr. Fogden says. "It's not cloud forest anymore, really."
Besides losing potential ingredients for new drugs or other useful compounds, scientists worry about more lost
benefits as species vanish. Healthy ecosystems are complex. Complexity lends resilience, the ability to ride out
disturbances. A resilient ecosystem will continue delivering the "services" humans expect, whether it's
harvesting abundant tuna from the sea or tapping fresh water as it tumbles down a mountainside. Each
species removed from an ecosystem brings it closer to a largely invisible threshold of collapse. Scientists tend
to use this economic reasoning about nature's importance when talking with journalists.
Species – AT: Non-Unique – Species Down

The non-unique doesn’t account for the placement of extinct species. Species in watershed
ecosystems have not YET gone extinct but are on the brink now.
ABC 7 (American bird conservatory “The alliance for zero extinction”

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:pfL9voNaaZIJ:www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/alliances/AZE.html+species+extinction+key+each&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=
us)
Across the Americas, large numbers of bird species are facing extinction, and more than one hundred
of these are now restricted to a single remaining site. It is time for practical, immediate steps to halt this
crisis-this is why ABC is dedicating a major effort to the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), a global
initiative of biodiversity conservation organizations, which aims to prevent extinctions by identifying and
safeguarding key sites where species are in imminent danger of disappearing. The goal of the Alliance is to
create a front line of defense against total extinction by eliminating threats and restoring habitat to allow
species populations to rebound. Not only will this initiative help birds, but many other species, along with key
watersheds and unique habitats, will also be protected as a result. In 2001, biodiversity conservation scientists
came together over a common concern: that landscape-based conservation approaches alone could not
conserve all species, and that many extinctions would occur imminently if key sites were not identified and
protected. These concerns led to the formation of AZE, which set about creating a global plan to avoid site-based
species extinctions. The Alliance aims to prevent extinctions by identifying and safeguarding key sites, each one of
which is the last remaining refuge of one or more Endangered or Critically Endangered species.To date, AZE has
identified 595 sites that each represent the last refuges of 794 of the world's most highly threatened species. From
the start, ABC has been a leading member of AZE, identifying key bird sites in the Americas, and helping to
coordinate AZE's work. We are also actively involved in conservation at a number of AZE sites.
Species – Hot spots Key

Megadiverse areas of the world contain 70% of all species on the planet and are critical to
planetary survival
Australian Gov. 7 (Department of the environment, water, heritage, and the arts “Australia’s biodiversity”
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:NZQFQtGQVo0J:www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/hotspots/index.html+hot+spots+biodiversity&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&
gl=us)
Australia is one of seventeen countries described as being 'megadiverse'. This group of countries has
less than 10% of the global surface, but support more than 70% of the biological diversity on earth. The
concept was first developed by Russell Mittermeier in 1988, as a way to prioritise conservation action. Based on
an analysis of primate conservation priorities, he found that four countries accounted for two-thirds of all
primate species. The analysis was then expanded to include other mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,
plants and selected groups of insects. This resulted in 17 countries being identified, representing more than
two-thirds of all (known) life forms and the majority of tropical rainforests, coral reefs and other priority
systems. The results of the assessment were published in the Megadiversity: Earth's biologically wealthiest nations
(Mittermeier, Gil and Mittermeier eds. 1997. Cemex, Mexico). Australia is home to between 600,000 and 700,000
species, many of which are endemic, that is they are found nowhere else in the world. These include, for example,
84% of our plant species, 83% of mammals, and 45% of birds. Australia's biodiversity - the plants, animals, micro-
organisms and their ecosystems - is threatened from the impacts of human activities. Since European settlement,
more than 50 species of Australian animals and over 60 species of Australian plants are known to have become
extinct. Refer to our SPRAT database for listings and details of threatened flora and fauna.
Sustaining hotspot ecosystems is critical to halt planetary destruction
Australian Gov. 7 (Department of the environment, water, heritage, and the arts “Australia’s biodiversity”
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:NZQFQtGQVo0J:www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/hotspots/index.html+hot+spots+biodiversity&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&
gl=us)
Biodiversity hotspots are areas that support natural ecosystems that are largely intact and where
native species and communities associated with these ecosystems are well represented. They are also areas
with a high diversity of locally endemic species, which are species that are not found or are rarely found
outside the hotspot. The current, planned or potential management activities in hotspots place the natural
values at risk, and it is likely this risk will increase in the future in the absence of active conservation
management. Because the natural values of hotspots are largely intact, undertaking action now to maintain
these values has the potential to provide value-for-money in contributing to our efforts in biodiversity
conservation.
Hotspots account for only 1.4% of the earth’s surface but contain 44% of the earth’s
species. Their destruction guarantees total destruction
Environmental Literacy Council 8 (“Hotspots of Biodiversity,

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:BzVT5fEDfJoJ:www.enviroliteracy.org/subcategory.php/202.html+hot+spots+biodiversity&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us)
In order to concentrate resources on those areas that are most vulnerable, conservationists have
identified certain areas as biodiversity “hotspots.” The term, first used by British ecologist Norman Myers in
1988, designated areas losing habitat at a high rate in which there is a disproportionate number of species
found nowhere else. In 2000, Myers and others identified 25 “hotspots” that together comprise only 1.4
percent of the Earth's surface, yet contain 44 percent of all species of higher plants and 35 percent of all land
vertebrate species. Conservation International has since adopted the concept as the base of its conservation
management strategy.
Species – Extinction
Species extinction risks human survival
Businessworld 98 (August 18,, p. 24)

Every species is interconnected with the natural systems that shape Earth's atmosphere, climate and
physical features; human beings could not exist without this wide range and variety of life. A recent
survey conducted by the American Museum of Natural History and Louis Harris and Associates confirmed
that "a majority of biologists believe that we are in the midst of a mass extinction of living things and that
expanding human populations and over exploitation of natural resources are causing an ever accelerating
degradation of environment quality, and an irreparable loss of species diversity." The survey reveals the
scientific consensus that the loss of species will pose a major threat to biodiversity and to the human
existence in the next century. Some scientists say that within the next 30 years, as many as half the
species on Earth will die in one of the fastest mass extinctions in the planet's 4-5-billion-year history, an
event referred as the "Sixth Extinction."
Species – Intrinsic value

Animals of all species deserve to exist.
Earth’s tree news 7 (Livejournal, 206 edition

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:tOuV0Sbbt3YJ:olyecology.livejournal.com/54410.html+biodiversity+%22Invisible+threshold%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl
=us)
We lived in cloud forest when we first arrived," Mr. Fogden says. "It's not cloud forest anymore, really."
Besides losing potential ingredients for new drugs or other useful compounds, scientists worry about more lost
benefits as species vanish. Healthy ecosystems are complex. Complexity lends resilience, the ability to ride out
disturbances. A resilient ecosystem will continue delivering the "services" humans expect, whether it's harvesting
abundant tuna from the sea or tapping fresh water as it tumbles down a mountainside. Each species removed from
an ecosystem brings it closer to a largely invisible threshold of collapse. Scientists tend to use this economic
reasoning about nature's importance when talking with journalists. When pressed, though, they make a
different argument. Species "should be preserved because of their intrinsic value," says Kayri Havens, director
of the Institute for Plant Biology and Conservation at the Chicago Botanic Garden, "because they deserve to exist.
Just as we do." Resplendent quetzals, iridescent tropical birds that he used to observe feeding frogs to their young,
are scarcer. Quetzal hatchlings may have lost a vital source of protein and calcium with the disappearance of once-
abundant amphibians, he reasons. Keel-billed toucans, meanwhile, have moved up from the foothills to the
mountain, perhaps competing with the quetzal. So has the morpho, a bright blue lowland butterfly. Snakes, which
also fed on the frogs, are much harder to come by even as lowland honeybees that previously avoided the mountain's
hive-infesting fungi now swarm up the mountain.
Species – AT Speciation
Speciation is not confirmed to be true and even if it were it would take too long to prevent
extinction
Boxhorn 95 (Joseph, talk origins archive. “Observed Instances of Speciation”
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:ZNuUlV9V_ZcJ:www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-
speciation.html+Speciation&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&client=firefox-a)
The literature on observed speciations events is not well organized. I found only a few papers that had an
observation of a speciation event as the author's main point (e.g. Weinberg, et al. 1992). In addition, I found only one
review that was specifically on this topic (Callaghan 1987). This review cited only four examples of speciation
events. Why is there such a seeming lack of interest in reporting observations of speciation events? In my humble
opinion, four things account for this lack of interest. First, it appears that the biological community considers this a
settled question. Many researchers feel that there are already ample reports in the literature. Few of these folks have
actually looked closely. To test this idea, I asked about two dozen graduate students and faculty members in the
department where I'm a student whether there were examples where speciation had been observed in the literature.
Everyone said that they were sure that there were. Next I asked them for citings or descriptions. Only eight of the
people I talked to could give an example, only three could give more than one. But everyone was sure that there
were papers in the literature. Second, most biologists accept the idea that speciation takes a long time (relative to
human life spans). Because of this we would not expect to see many speciation events actually occur. The
literature has many more examples where a speciation event has been inferred from evidence than it has
examples where the event is seen. This is what we would expect if speciation takes a long time. Third, the
literature contains many instances where a speciation event has been inferred. The number and quality of these
cases may be evidence enough to convince most workers that speciation does occur. Finally, most of the current
interest in speciation concerns theoretical issues. Most biologists are convinced that speciation occurs. What
they want to know is how it occurs. One recent book on speciation (Otte and Endler 1989) has few example of
observed speciation, but a lot of discussion of theory and mechanisms. Most of the reports, especially the recent
reports, can be found in papers that describe experimental tests of hypotheses related to speciation. Usually
these experiments focus on questions related to mechanisms of speciation. Examples of these questions include:
Does speciation precede or follow adaptation to local ecological conditions? Is speciation a by-product of genetic
divergence among populations or does it occur directly by natural selection through lower fitness of hybrids?
How quickly does speciation occur? What roles do bottlenecks and genetic drift play in speciation? Can
speciation occur sympatrically (i.e. can two or more lineages diverge while they are intermingled in the same place)
or must the populations be separated in space or time? What roles do pleiotropy and genetic hitchhiking play in
speciation? It is important to note that a common theme running through these questions is that they all attempt to
address the issue of how speciation occurs.
AT Species – Non-Unique - ↓ Now

16,0000 at risk
Sydney Morning Herald 4 (11/18/04, “Nearly 16,000 species threatened with extinction)
Nearly 16,000 of the world's plant and animal species face extinction largely because of the
destructive behaviour of mankind, says a major new environmental report . Over-exploitation, climate change
and habitat destruction are to blame for a crisis that has wiped out at least 27 species from the wild over the
last two decades, according to the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) red list of threatened species. The report
says more than 7000 animal species are threatened with extinction. They include 32 per cent of amphibians,
42 per cent of turtles and tortoises, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds. Among the casualties
since last year's report, the IUCN confirms the Hawaiian thrush has gone the way of the dodo with no sighting
of the bird for 15 years. Costa Rica's golden toad has also been listed as extinct largely through climate
change, pollution and disease.More than 8000 plants are listed as threatened with the St Helena olive tree the latest
to be declared extinct after the last remaining seedling withered and died in November last year without any seeds
kept.
30% of all species became extinct in the last 35 years.
CBC 8 (5/16/08 Canadian Broadcasting company http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/16/species-decline.html)

Human activity is wiping out close to one per cent of every other species on Earth every year, a global
environmental report said Friday. The Living Planet Index, compiled by the World Wildlife Fund, the Zoological
Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, said the population of birds, fish, mammals, reptiles and
amphibians has dropped by almost a third in the last 35 years. "You'd have to go back to the extinction of the
dinosaurs to see a decline as rapid as this," said Jonathan Loh, editor of the report. The main reasons for species
extinction are pollution, farming and urban expansion, overfishing and hunting, the report said. Between 1960 and
2000, the world's population doubled, said Ben Collen, one of the authors of the report. Decline 'caused by
humans' "Yet during the same period, animal populations have declined by 30 per cent on average. It's
beyond doubt that this decline has been caused by humans," he said. The report tracks birds, fish, mammals, reptiles
and amphibians around the world. Marine bird species alone have fallen by 30 per cent between 1995 and 2005, it
said. As well, between 1970 and 2005, land-based species fell by 25 per cent, marine by 28 per cent and
freshwater by 29 per cent. "Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives, so it is alarming that despite an
increased awareness of environmental issues we continue to see a downtrend trend," said WWF campaign head Colin Butfield. The report comes in the lead up to the
Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn next week. More than 5,000 delegates will gather from May 19-30 to "discuss the protection and the preservation of
species and habitats, a sustainable use of biological diversity as well as a fair distribution of access and exploitation," the conference website says.
One species goes extinct every twenty minutes
Science Daily 2 (1/10/02

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:Ys6ffti2ncsJ:www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020109074801.htm+One+species+extinct+20+minutes&hl=en&ct=clnk
&cd=1&gl=us
Although the extinction of various species is a natural phenomenon, the rate of extinction occurring
in today's world is exceptional -- as many as 100 to1,000 times greater than normal, Dr. Donald A. Levin said in
the January-February issue of American Scientist magazine. The co-author is Levin's son, Phillip S. Levin, a
National Marine Fisheries Service biologist who is an expert on the demography of fish, especially salmon.
Levin's column noted that on average, a distinct species of plant or animal becomes extinct every 20 minutes.
Donald Levin, who works in the section of integrative biology in the College of Natural Sciences, said research
shows the rate of current loss is highly unusual -- clearly qualifying the present period as one of the six great
periods of mass extinction in the history of Earth. "The numbers are grim," he said. "Some 2,000 species of
Pacific Island birds (about 15 percent of the world total) have gone extinct since human colonization. Roughly
20 of the 297 known mussel and clam species and 40 of about 950 fishes have perished in North America in
the last century. The globe has experienced similar waves of destruction just five times in the past." Biological
diversity ultimately recovered after each of the five past mass extinctions, probably requiring several million
years in each instance. As for today's mass extinction, Levin said some ecologists believe the low level of species
diversity may become a permanent state, especially if vast tracts of wilderness area are destroyed.
AT Species – AT: Invisible Threshold/Each Species

The “Invisible threshold” leads to oversimplification of policy decisions and a downward
spiral
Fox 3 (Douglas, Freelance science writer More than Meets the Eye: Behavior and Conservation
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:HPdca1eso6MJ:www.conbio.org/CIP/article43mor.cfm+biodiversity+%22Invisible+threshold%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=
us)
Population models can be powerful tools for making policy decisions. But these tools can also
dangerously oversimplify reality, as a result overestimating how much exploitation a population can sustain
— or failing to predict the point where population decline crosses the invisible threshold into an accelerating
downward spiral.
“The opportunity we’re really missing,” says William Sutherland, a population biologist at the University
of East Anglia in the U.K., “is to create population models from an understanding of behavior. The reason that’s
incredibly important is we want to predict what will happen under novel conditions” such as exploitation or habitat
alteration.
The extinction of a single species does not spell destruction of the planet
Corneilius van Kooten &. Bulte 0 ( G, Cornelius , Erwin. A.R.E. Sinclair, University of British Columbia, Tilburg University and
University of BC, Conserving Nature’s Biodiversity: insights from biology, ethics and economics, eds. Van Kooten, Bulte and Sinclair, p. 6)
The neoclassical paradigm is the antithesis of the ecological view that natural capital imposes severe
constraints on growth—that economic collapse might be brought about by ecosystem collapse. The neoclassical
view is that, as biological resources become scarce, their relative values will rise, which leads to greater investments
in their conservation. These points are made by Simpson and Sedjo. The neoclassical view is that the elasticity of
substitution between natural capital and reproducible capital is high. Further, this view argues that loss of species is
exaggerated and that species loss does not result in ecosystem dysfunction, and possibly not a loss in genetic
diversity. It is possible to substitute some species for others. In Chapter 9, Bulte et al. explicitly argue that an
economist’s approach to conservation of nature and biodiversity is likely consistent with further conversion of
natural capital into alternative assets that are useful to society at large. They illustrate this point with several case
studies.
Biological history disproves that each species is key to survival
DALLAS MORNING NEWS 97, (October 27, 1997, p. lexis-nexis. (BLUEOC 0114)
Even though populations are disappearing quickly, Hughes said that the second "Science" paper is "a bright
spot in all this," describing how the tree of life could survive serious pruning. Even if 95 percent of all species are
lost, 80 percent of the underlying evolutionary history remains intact, write Nee and Sir Robert May, also a biologist
at Oxford. The scientists came up with equations to describe how much evolutionary history would remain after
some species went extinct. And they found that it didn't really matter whether they killed off species at random or in
a particular pattern. Choosing particular species to save didn't preserve much more evolutionary history than saving
species at random, the research shows. The work has implications for conservation biologists, who struggle with
choosing which species are the most important to protect. "It turns out that it really doesn't make a whole lot of
difference," Dr. Nee said.
AT Species – AT: Keystone Species

Niche theory models are flawed
Botkin et al. 7 (Daniel, professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology UC Santa Barbara “Forecasting the effects of
global warming on biodiversity” http://www.aibs.org/bioscience-press-releases/resources/03-07.pdf)
However, niche-theory models have a number of limitations (Guisan and Thuiller 2005). First, they are
primarily correlative, using observed statistical relationships between occurrences of a species and its
environment. Second, they assume that observed distributions are in equilibrium (or quasi-equilibrium) with
their current environment, and that therefore species become extinct outside the region where the
environment, including the climate, meets their present or assumed requirements—contradicting the data
reviewed earlier, as well as many natural history observations of transplanted species, that show species have
survived in small areas of unusual habitat (Pearson 2006), or in habitats that are outside the well-established
geographic range but actually meet their requirements. Thus niche-theory models are likely to overestimate
extinctions, even when they realistically suggest changes in ranges of many species. Another problem with
niche-theory models, as with most models, is that they are difficult to validate, and few have been adequately
validated. For example, Lawler and colleagues (2006) compare six approaches to modeling the effects of global warming on fauna, but do not attempt to validate
any of the models independently. Indeed, bioclimatic models vary greatly in their projections of extinction (e.g., Thuiller et al. 2005, Lawler et al. 2006, Pearson et al.
2006). An additional complication is that the relationship between the occurrence of a species and climatic variables is not always correlated with the mean. For
example, amphibian declines due to outbreaks of a pathogenic chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) are related to the annual range of temperatures, not to
the mean temperature (Pounds et al. 2006).
Niche theory flawed
Guisan and Thuiler 5 (Le Science Laboratoire de Biologie de la Conservation (LBC), Département d’Ecologie et d’Evolution (DEE) “Predicting
species distribution: offering more than simple habitat models” http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:2qpaAV-eH1YJ:www.will.chez-
alice.fr/pdf/GuisanThuillerEL2005.pdf+Guisan+and+Thuiller+2005&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a)
A useful framework for clarification was recently proposed by Pulliam (2000), who proposed four
theoretical views of the relationship between niche and distribution: (a) the Grinellian niche, where a species
occurs wherever the environmental conditions are suitable (i.e. fundamental niche, with a population growth rate
‡ 1); (b) the realized niche of Hutchinson, where a species is excluded from part of its fundamental niche by a
competitor or a predator, (c) the source-sink dynamics, where a species commonly occurs in a sink habitat
where its population growth rate is < 1, and thus where it would disappear without constant immigration
from source habitats, and (d) the dispersal limitation situation, where a species is frequently absent from
suitable habitats because of recurring extinction events and limited dispersal ability preventing full
recolonization (e.g. Svenning & Skov 2004). Traditionally, plant ecologists have relied on niche concepts (a)
and (b), whereas zoologists have been keener to additionally consider scenarios.
Predictions of species destruction are wrong-six reasons
Guisan and Thuiler 5 (Le Science Laboratoire de Biologie de la Conservation (LBC), Département d’Ecologie et d’Evolution (DEE) “Predicting
species distribution: offering more than simple habitat models” http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:2qpaAV-eH1YJ:www.will.chez-
alice.fr/pdf/GuisanThuillerEL2005.pdf+Guisan+and+Thuiller+2005&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a)
The species–area method of forecasting changes in biodiversity under global warming has six
limitations (most summarized by Lewis 2006). First, it assumes an equilibrium (or very slowly changing)
relationship between species number and area. Second, the future climate probably will not be an exact
analog of the current one, so “moving” a bioclimatic zone for an ecological type may not be accurate
(Malcolm et al. 2006). Third, topographic variation, which affects the species–area curve shape,may be greater
or less in the future zone. Fourth, factors relating to the shape of areas and the amount of their fragmentation
suggest that an al ternative “endemics–area curve”may enable more accurate predictions (Harte et al. 2004).
Fifth, the correct z value must be chosen: It must apply to the entire area under consideration, and it must
also consider the type of area and timescale applicable (Rosenzweig 1995). Sixth,many species are not
confined to a particular vegetation zone or type. For the species–area relationship to predict species
extinctions, the area must be for closed communities. Thomas and colleagues (2004) used individual species
distributions as the basis for their analysis. They examined changes in realized niches without taking into account
the likelihood of changed interactions and adaptation, and thus the new areas that they predicted were probably too
small. How these area changes relate to changes in area of closed communities is unclear
AT Species – No Impact - Geographic Diversity/Migration
Geographically peripheral species check
Safriel 97 [Uriel N., Professor, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, “Relations Between Biodiversity,
Desertification, and Climate Change,” Israel Environment Bulletin, Vol. 20, No. 1, http://www.israel-
mfa.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Communiques/1997/RELATIONS%20BETWEEN%20BIODIVERSITY-
%20DESERTIFICATION%20AN]
However, the prospective loss of biodiversity due to global warming may still be mitigated by an exploitation
of the genetic diversity of species living in the semiarid ecosystems of Israel. There is a growing amount of
evidence supporting a theory which suggests that geographically peripheral populations of a species, as
compared to the populations of the same species inhabiting core areas of its geographical distribution, are
living under low environmental stability, have high within-species diversity, high evolutionary
potential, and most importantly high resistance to environmental changes, hence persistence under the
forecasted climatic change. There are therefore climate change scenarios that will cause core populations of
drought-resistant species to become extinct due to their low genetic diversity (hence a lack of drought-
resistant genotypes), whereas peripheral populations will persist and could be used to rehabilitate the
core areas of distribution of their species. This is not to say that the semiarid peripheral populations, if
protected from development and desertification, will not be affected by climate change. Climate change will
act as a selection agent, that will eliminate the non-resistant genotypes and thus will reduce genetic diversity.
But the populations will persist and will be used for rehabilitation of the core areas. The rehabilitated
population of a given species will differ in its genetic structure as compared to the extinct one it will be
composed predominantly of drought-resistant genotypes, originating in the semiarid region. But the species
will persist, and the ecosystems will not be damaged.
Natural and assisted migration solve species extinction
Zimmer 7 (Carl, Writer for New York Times. 1/23/07 “A Radical Step to Preserve a Species: Assisted Migration”)
Conservation biologists are talking seriously about assisted migration because the effects of climate
change are already becoming clear. The average temperature of the planet is 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit higher
than it was in 1880. Dr. Camille Parmesan, a biologist at the University of Texas, reviewed hundreds of studies on
the ecological effects of climate change this month in the journal Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and
Systematics. Many plant species are now budding earlier in the spring. Animals migrate earlier as well. And
the ranges of many species are shifting to higher latitudes, as they track the climate that suits them best. This
is hardly the first time that species have moved in response to climate change. For over two million years, the
planet has swung between ice ages and warm periods, causing some species to shift their ranges hundreds of
miles. But the current bout of warming may be different. The earth was already relatively warm when it began.
“These species haven’t seen an earth as warm as this one’s going to be in a long, long time,” said Dr. Mark
Schwartz, a conservation biologist at the University of California, Davis.
AT Species – No Impact - Tech Solves/Resilience

Technological advances have substantially reduced the negative effects of species extinction
Whitmore, Sayer 92 ( T. C. And J. L. Editors), “Tropical Deforestation and Species Extinction”
extinction came to scientific prominence in 1979 with my debate opponent Norman Myers's book The Sinking
Ark. It then was brought to an international public and onto the U. S. policy agenda by the 1980 Global 2000 Report
to the President. These still are the canonical texts. Global 2000 forecast extraordinary losses of species
between 1980 and 2000. "Extinctions of plant and animal species will increase dramatically. Hundreds of
thousands of species -- perhaps as many as 20 percent of all species on earth -- will be irretrievably lost as
their habitats vanish, especially in tropical forests," it said. The actual data on the observed rates of species
extinction are wildly at variance with Myers's and following statements, and do not provide support for the
various policies suggested to deal with the purported dangers. Furthermore, recent scientific and technical
advances -- especially seed banks and genetic engineering, and perhaps electronic mass-testing of new drugs
-- have reduced the importance of maintaining a particular species of plant life in its natural habitat. But the
bandwagon of the species extinction issue continues to roll with ever-increasing speed. Society properly is
concerned about possible dangers to species. Individual species, and perhaps all species taken together, constitute a
valuable endowment, and we should guard their survival just as we guard our other physical and esthetic assets. But
we should strive for as clear and unbiased an under-standing as possible in order to make the best possible
judgments about how much time and money to spend in guarding them, in a world in which this valuable
activity must compete with guarding and supporting other valuable aspects of civilization.
Species are too resilient for the impacts to occur
Sedjo 0 ( Roger, Sr. Fellow, Resources for the Future, “Conserving Nature’s Biodiversity: insights from biology,
ethics and economics”, eds. p. 114)
As a critical input into the existence of humans and of life on earth, biodiversity obviously has a very high
value (at least to humans). But, as with other resource questions, including public goods, biodiversity is not an
either/or question, but rather a question of “how much.” Thus, we may argue as to how much biodiversity is
desirable or is required for human life (threshold) and how much is desirable (insurance) and at what price, just as
societies argue over the appropriate amount and cost of national defense. As discussed by Simpson, the value of
water is small even though it is essential to human life, while diamonds are inessential but valuable to humans. The
reason has to do with relative abundance and scarcity, with market value pertaining to the marginal unit. This water-
diamond paradox can be applied to biodiversity. Although biological diversity is essential, a single species has only
limited value, since the global system will continue to function without that species. Similarly, the value of a piece
of biodiversity (e.g., 10 ha of tropical forest) is small to negligible since its contribution to the functioning of the
global biodiversity is negligible. The global ecosystem can function with “somewhat more” or “somewhat less”
biodiversity, since there have been larger amounts in times past and some losses in recent times. Therefore, in the
absence of evidence to indicate that small habitat losses threaten the functioning of the global life support system,
the value of these marginal habitats is negligible. The “value question” is that of how valuable to the life support
function are species at the margin. While this, in principle, is an empirical question, in practice it is probably
unknowable. However, thus far, biodiversity losses appear to have had little or no effect on the functioning of the
earth’s life support system, presumably due to the resiliency of the system, which perhaps is due to the redundancy
found in the system. Through most of its existence, earth has had far less biological diversity. Thus, as in the water-
diamond paradox, the value of the marginal unit of biodiversity appears to be very small.
AT Species –AT: biggest wave of extinctions

The wave of mass extinctions forecasted by the aff has already come and gone
Motluk 2 (Alison, literary critic, Salon.com, book review, “Future Evolution” by Peter Ward, January 29,
http://www.salon.com/books/review/2002/01/29/ward/)
But Ward's Big Idea is a fascinating one. (Good thing, too, as this isn't the first book he's written on the
topic.) Unlike the doomsayers out there, he doesn't think there's another mass extinction looming. Rather, he's
convinced it's well underway, and that the worst is already over. Most of the big mammals that are going to die off
already have. Among those no longer with us are the mastodons, the mammoths, the saber-toothed tiger, the giant
short-faced bear. "It is visible in the rear-view mirror, a roadkill already turned into geologic litter -- bones not yet
even petrified -- the end of the Age of Megamammals," he writes.
AT Species – AT: Intrinsic worth

The intrinsic worth of any species is less than the intrinsic worth of humanity. We must
seek to preserve our own species
Randall & Farmer, (Alan, Michael Professors at Ohio State, 1995, “Handbook of Environmental Economics”
http://econpapers.repec.org/bookchap/eeeenvchp/)
Recognition of other co-equal or superior values, moral principles, or individual concerns returns us to the slick
terrain. The case for biodiversity is always circumstantial, that is, relative to the possibilities that are available and
the strength of the competing claims. Ehrenfeld (1988) claimed the high ground by resisting all the circumstantial
approaches as mere manifestations of the moral repugnancy of homocentrism. But, his victory is empy, since it
depends on first-principle or preeminent value status for biodiversity, and such status is unlikely to survive scrutiny
given the powerful appeal of many other candidates.
AT Species – Turn: Speciation

Species loss is a natural process that allows for evolution of more resilient species.
Raup 91 (David, Dr. of Zoology. University of chicago., EXTINCTION: BAD GENES OR BAD LUCK, p.187 (MHHAR3474)
In Chapter 1, I suggested that without species extinction, biodiversity would increase until some saturation level was
reached, after which speciation would be forced to stop. At saturation, natural selection would continue to operate
and improved adaptations would continue to develop. But many of the innovations in evolution, such as new body
plans or modes of life, would probably not appear. The result would be a slowing of evolution and an approach to
some sort of steady-state condition. According to this view, the principal role of extinction in evolution is to
eliminate species and thereby to reduce biodiversity so that space -- ecological and geographic -- is available for
innovation.
AT Species –Nuclear War = Species Extinction

A nuclear war would cause species extinction
Wade 90 (Nichola,s, The New York Times

[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D8173CF936A35751C0A966958260] The Editorial
Notebook; Lessons of Nuclear Winter; Impassioned Experts Blow Hot and Cold/ February 5, 1990)
The horrors of nuclear war are hard to exaggerate. That hasn't stopped proponents of the ''nuclear winter''
theory, who announced in 1983 that the soot from a large nuclear war would blot out sunlight and create
weeks of icy darkness. The result could be ''global environmental changes sufficient to cause the
extinction of a major fraction of the plant and animal species on the Earth,'' wrote a group of eminent
biologists in Science magazine. ''In that event, the possibility of the extinction of Homo sapiens cannot
be excluded.''
Biodiversity Hotspots Key

Hotspots critical to env protection
Tom Gardner- Outlaw January 2, 2000 “Millenium 2000: Environment” CNN.com Transcript
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0001/02/se.35.html
A mass extinction caused by an expanding population of humans, industry and agriculture consuming natural
habitats, contamination poisoning the food chain. It's happening everywhere. It's happening in our own backyards,
and it's happening in the most far-flung corners of the planet, from Antarctica to the depths of the seas, from the
tropical rainforests of Brazil to the deserts in Chihuahua.
The loss of biological diversity is essentially the bottom line of what we're doing to the planet. You can fix
physical problems like pollution, but you can never replace massive number of species lost to extinction. Most
extinctions are now concentrated in a few critical areas around the world. Scientists call them "hot spots."
And a hot spot is a place where there are large numbers of animal and plants species that are found nowhere
else, and where that entire area of natural environment is itself endangered so that when that environment is
destroyed, a lot of species go extinct, there's a mass extinction. A new study has investigated hot spots like the
forests in Indonesia and Madagascar. The study shows 25 major hot spots covering less than two percent of the
Earth's land area, shelter nearly two-thirds of all plant and animal species. Mother nature has put her eggs in
a very few baskets.And most of those baskets are hot spots of tropical forests, where vast areas are chopped down
or burned every year.The rate at which we're destroying rainforests worldwide is such that almost all of the
rainforests will be gone within 50 years or so. And it's that, more than any other factor, that leads us to believe that
we can lose so much of biological diversity. Mass extinction in habitats as rich as these sweeps away not only
more familiar species like the Orang Utan in Southeast Asia and many endangered birds in Hawaii, but also
hundreds of thousands of others, many still undiscovered. It's subtle, we can't put the dead bodies of species
extinction on the table and look at them, because most things don't even have names yet. But we know it's
happening. And we can see the forest being reduced.
Biodiversity Loss – Extinction

Environmental collapse means human extinction.
Irish Times 02 (7/27, LN)
Such pleasure is probably the least important reason why biodiversity is a good thing: human survival is
more to the point. Conservationists insist that biodiversity is basic to the Earth's life-support system and
that the progressive loss of species - as in the current destruction of natural forest - could help destabilise
the very processes by which the planet services our presence and wellbeing. Most ecologists, probably,
go along with the idea that every species matters. Like rivets in an aeroplane, each has its own, small
importance: let too many pop and things start to fly apart. But some are now arguing that since so many
species seem to do much the same job, mere "species richness" may not be essential: so long as "keystone
species" are identified and cared for, their ecosystems will probably still function.
Biodiversity outweighs other impacts

Chen, 2k (Jim, Prof. of Law and Vance K. Opperman Research Scholar) 9Minn. J. Global Trade
157
The value of endangered species and the biodiversity they embody is "literally ... incalculable." What,
if anything, should the law do to preserve it? There are those that invoke the story of
Noah's Ark as a moral
basis for biodiversity preservation. Others regard the entire Judeo-Chhstian tradition,
especially the biblical
stories of Creation and the Flood, as the root of the West's deplorable environmental
record. To avoid getting
bogged down in an environmental exegesis of Judeo-Christian "myth and legend," we
should let Charles
Darwin and evolutionary biology determine the imperatives of our moment in natural
"history." The loss of
biological diversity is quite arguably the gravest problem facing humanity. If we cast the question as
the contemporary phenomenon that "our descendants [will1 most regret" the "loss of genetic and
species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats" is worse than even "energy depletion,
economic collapse, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government." Natural evolution
may in due course renew the earth with a diversity of species approximating that of a world unspoiled
by Homo sapiens - in ten million years, perhaps a hundred million.
Biodiversity Loss – Extinction Impact

Biodiversity is key to preventing mass planetary extinction.
Aldridge (Michelle, University of Florida) April 16 2002
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Aldridge/bibliography.htm
Few scientists question that biodiversity is disappearing across the earth faster than it can be replaced.
Although it is difficult to put a number on species loss when not all species have been identified, projections,
trusted by the scientific community, show that up to 50 percent of Earth's animals and plants could be on the
path to extinction. (Morell, 1999)
Nearly all biologists believe we are currently in a state of mass extinction - a period of extreme species loss
which puts life on Earth in jeopardy. Although extinction is a normal biological process, it does not usually
occur so quickly for so many species.
Although there have been five mass extinctions since the beginning of the Earth, none of them have occurred
as rapidly as the species loss scientists estimate today. Also, unlike the other mass extinctions that were caused
by natural phenomenon, most biologists believe this extinction was initiated by a single species - humans.
(Conserving Earth's Biodiversity, 2000)
For this reason, biologists today consider the loss of biodiversity the chief environmental concern, above ozone layer
depletion, global warming, pollution and contamination. (American Museum of Natural History, 1998)
Saving all biodiversity is necessary to prevent a massive planetary extinction, It is also

needed to find new cures for diseases and to prevent increases of environmental disasters.
American Museum of Natural History, “NATIONAL SURVEY REVEALS BIODIVERSITY CRISIS -
SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS BELIEVE WE ARE IN MIDST OF FASTEST MASS EXTINCTION IN EARTH'S
HISTORY: Crisis Poses Major Threat to Human Survival; Public Unaware of Danger” 2006
http://www.amnh.org/museum/press/feature/biofact.html
Seven out of ten biologists believe that we are in the midst of a mass extinction of living things, and that this
dramatic loss of species poses a major threat to human existence in the next century. In strong contrast to the fears
expressed by scientists, the general public is relatively unaware of the loss of species and the threats that it poses. This mass extinction is
the fastest in Earth's 4.5-billion-year history and, unlike prior extinctions, is mainly the result of human
activity and not of natural phenomena.Scientists rate biodiversity loss as a more serious environmental
problem than the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, or pollution and contamination. Scientists
overwhelmingly believe that we must act now to address the biodiversity crisis. The majority of scientists
believe the crisis could be averted by a stronger stance by policymakers and governments and by individuals
making changes in their daily lives. Scientists believe some of the most important effects of this dramatic
species loss are: Serious impairment of the environment's ability to recover from natural and human-induced
disasters. Destruction of the natural systems that purify the world's air and water. Reduction of the potential
for the discovery of new medicines. Increased flooding, drought, and other environmental disasters.
Substantial contribution to the degradation of the world's economies, thereby weakening the social and
political stability of nations across the globe.
Biodiversity – Extinction Impact

Massive planetary extinction as big as an asteroid impact is looming- only
human actions can prevent it by saving biodiversity.
Tom Gardner- Outlaw January 2, 2000 “Millenium 2000: Environment” CNN.com Transcript
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0001/02/se.35.html
Extinction is said to be necessary in the process of evolution, old species vanish, new ones take their place. During hundreds of millions of years,
scientists say, mass extinctions have periodically wiped out most forms of life. The causes are unknown, possibly huge volcanic eruptions, or
climate change. Sixty-five million years ago, a collision with an asteroid is believed to have caused a global die-off
that included all dinosaurs. Scientists recognize five such mass extinctions in history, and they say we are now
at the onset of the sixth. These are rates of extinction that can only really be compared with these brief
moments in the past when biological diversity has come crashing down.
Biological diversity is the web of life on the planet. The total variety of plant and animal species, all living
things. And like the others, this sixth mass extinction is a biological diversity crash. Not just big animals, but
little animals, down to insects and plants too are disappearing. And we're in the middle of a species extinction
crisis that is unique, for the last few tens of millions of years. But there is a big difference between this mass
extinction, and those in the past. In the past, the causes of extinction were unavoidable, perhaps a collision
with an asteroid, or a massive volcanic eruption. This sixth extinction has only one cause, and it's us.
Biodiversity – Ethical Obligation

Ethical obligation to protect biodiversity
Brown 96 (Donald A. Brown, Program Manager for United Nations Organizations with the United States
Environmental Protection Agency, Summer, Dickinson journal of environmental law and policy
In addition to these utilitarian justifications for protecting the world's biodiversity, many people argue
that we have ethical obligations either as stewards of the planet for future generations or for other
anthropocentric or biocentric ethical reasons to preserve the genetic bounty of the Earth. Therefore,
even though the global problem of loss of biodiversity does not create a direct threat to the health of
U.S. citizens in the same way as the problems of climate change or destruction of the ozone layer, the
biodiversity problem creates a serious threat to what is commonly referred to as the common heritage
of humankind.
AT Biodiversity – No Ecological Collapse Impact

Biodiversity is not key to preventing ecological collapse
Calgary Herald, August 30, 1997
Ecologists have long maintained that diversity is one of nature's greatest strengths, but new research suggests
that diversity alone does not guarantee strong ecosystems. In findings that could intensify the debate over
endangered species and habitat conservation, three new studies suggest a greater abundance of plant and
animal varieties doesn't always translate to better ecological health. At least equally important, the
research found, are the types of species and how they function together. "Having a long list of Latin names
isn't always better than a shorter list of Latin names," said Stanford University biologist Peter Vitousek, coauthor
of one of the studies published in the journal Science. Separate experiments in California, Minnesota
and Sweden, found that diversity often had little bearing on the performance of ecosystems -- at least as
measured by the growth and health of native plants. In fact, the communities with the greatest biological
richness were often the poorest when it came to productivity and the cycling of nutrients. One study
compared plant life on 50 remote islands in northern Sweden that are prone to frequent wildfires from
lightning strikes. Scientist David Wardle of Landcare Research in Lincoln, New Zealand, and colleagues at
the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, found that islands dominated by a few species of plants
recovered more quickly than nearby islands with greater biological diversity. Similar findings were reported
by University of Minnesota researchers who studied savannah grasses, and by Stanford's Vitousek and
colleague David Hooper, who concluded that functional characteristics of plant species were more important
than the number of varieties in determining how ecosystems performed. British plant ecologist J.P. Grime, in
a commentary summarizing the research, said there is as yet no "convincing evidence that species
diversity and ecosystem function are consistently and causally related." "It could be argued," he added,
"that the tide is turning against the notion of high biodiversity as a controller of ecosystem function and
insurance against ecological collapse."
AT Biodiversity – No Extinction
Total biodiversity loss will NOT result in extinction
NEAA 7 (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 07 (“Cross-roads of Life on Earth: Exploring means to meet the 2010
Biodiversity Target,” http://www.mnp.nl/en/publications/2007/CrossroadsofPlanetEarthsLife.html)
<At the request of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) MNP carried out an investigation on possibilities
for limiting the loss of global biodiversity. This was done in preparation for COP8, the 8th Conference of the Parties
to the Convention held in Brazil from 20-31 March 2006. The discussions among policy makers from governments
represented focus on such issues as the progress made in reaching the 2010 target of significant reduction in
biodiversity loss. Continuation of current policies leads to substantial loss in biodiversity. Economic and geographic
trends already brought the biodiversity down to 70% in the year 2000, compared to a completely natural situation.
Biodiversity loss will continue at the same rate in the used reference scenario where current policies are not
changed. Global biodiversity will decrease further, reaching 63% in 2050. This concerns total biodiversity loss,
which should not be confused with complete extinction of species. Information on the indicator “Natural Capital
Index (NCI)” can be found in the Environmental Data Compendium elsewhere on this website. Effects on fresh- and
saltwater ecosystems were not included in this study. Biodiversity loss will remain unabatedly high with an
expected growth of the world population from 6 to about 9 billon, for whom the average per capita income will be
three times the current value. This will result in increasing emissions of greenhouse gases; rising food and wood
demand; and increases in infrastructure and construction, fragmentation and pollution. A substantial increase in
agricultural productivity is already taken into consideration in this scenario. Globally more efficient food production
will be crucial to limiting future biodiversity loss as much as possible. Although a further reduction of 7% seems
confined, the remaining biodiversity is found largely in desolate and remote areas such as ice- and snow-covered
land, desert, tundra, boreal forest and mountains. The greatest losses are expected in the biodiversity surrounding us:
large plants and animals needing a lot of space, and long-living species reproducing at a slow rate.>
Soil Erosion – Kills Species

Soil Erosion Hurt Fish
Department of Environment Protection 2005 (Bureau of land and water quality, Soil erosion,
http://maine.gov/dep/blwq/doceducation/dirt.htm)
Examples of erosion associated with new construction

We have all seen a stream in our neighborhood turn cloudy or brown after a rainstorm. This cloudy water makes it
difficult for fish to see and feed properly. The particles act as sandpaper against a fish’s gills causing damage and
making breathing difficult.
Many fish and aquatic insects lay their eggs in gravel beds. The sediments that are deposited in the stream cover up
these areas, sometimes even entombing young fish and eggs.
The sediment may also destroy a stream’s natural ‘riffle and pool’ pattern and can make a stream shallower. When
streams become wider and more shallow, flooding problems can increase. The shallow water is heated more
efficiently by the sun, causing water temperatures to rise and then cold water fish, such as trout, are replaced by
warm water fish.
Soil Erosion Hurt fish by destroying their habitat.

Farmers Weekly 2007 ( September 28,Soil management avoids washing away profits)
Loss of nutrients and movement and deposition of soil has a direct cost, resulting in variable crop growth and yield
loss. The environment also suffers - soil is washed down slopes into roads, lakes and ditches, causing pollution
which can lead to algal blooms and reduced fish stocks.
Soil Erosion hurts the duck population

Sediments cloud the water and cover plant leaves, reducing sunlight penetration and inhibiting photosynthesis (plant
food production). Sediment accumulations also harm duck populations by filling in their wetland habitats.
To add to all these problem, eroded soil particles are more than just soil particles. They carry hitchhiking pollutants
like oil, fertilizers, pesticides and bacteria. Toxic materials can contaminate small organisms. When fish and
waterfowl eat the contaminated organisms, the toxins accumulate in their bodies and cause illnesses, birth defects
and death. In lakes, one particular hitchhiker can be devastating – phosphorous. With our changes to the landscape,
we increase the amount of phosphorus running off the land. Phosphorus helps plants to grow, but in lakes it causes
algal blooms, reducing water quality.
Soil Erosion = Global Warming

Soil Erosion causes Global Warming
Chua 2007 (Jasmine Malik master of science in biomedical journalism at New York University, The Dirt on Soil Erosion, August 31,
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/soil_erosion.php )
Soil erosion runs far deeper than we might think. In fact, we could be looking at a "silent global crisis"—one that is
undermining food production and water availability, not to mention responsible for 30 percent of greenhouse gases.
"We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life on Earth," Andres Arnalds, assistant director of the Icelandic
Soil Conservation Service, told IPS News. "Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate around the globe,
which in turn has devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change."
Around 38,600 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) is stripped of its vegetarian or turns into desert. "Land
degradation and desertification may be regarded as the silent crisis of the world, a genuine threat to the future of
humankind," Arnalds said.
Although food production has more or less kept pace with population growth by increasing 50 percent between 1980
and 2000, it is unclear whether we'll have enough food to feed the estimated three billion more mouths in 2050. To
do that, Arnalds said, we'd need to produce more food within the next 50 years than humankind has during the last
10,000 years combined, which might be a nearly impossible task considering global food production per hectare is
already on the decline. One of the reasons for that decline is that soil degradation produces growing shortages of
water. (No soil and vegetation, no way to keep moisture locked in).
Soil Erosion helps prevent Global warming

ScienceDaily 2007 (Oct. 26, Agricultural Soil Erosion Not Contributing To Global Warming, Study Shows
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071025143317.htm)
Agricultural soil erosion is not a source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, according to research published
online October 25 in Science. Carbon emissions are of great concern worldwide because they, and other
greenhouse gases, trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere and are a major cause of global climate change.
"There is still little known about how much carbon exactly is released, versus captured, by different processes in
terrestrial ecosystems," said Johan Six, a professor of agroecology at UC Davis and one of the study's authors. "We
urgently need to quantify this if we are to develop sensible and cost-effective measures to combat climate change."
The study was carried out by an international team led by researchers at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,
Belgium, the University of Exeter, UK, and the University of California, Davis.
The researchers developed a new method to establish the net effect of erosion on exchanges of carbon between the
soil and the atmosphere. They found that in landscapes subject to soil erosion, erosion acts like a conveyor belt,
excavating subsoil, passing it through surface soils and burying it in hill-slope hollows. During its journey, the soil
absorbs carbon from plant material and this becomes buried within the soil in depositional areas. Erosion, therefore,
leads to more carbon being removed from the atmosphere than is emitted, creating what can be described as a 'sink'
of atmospheric carbon.
Soil Erosion – ↓ Water Supply

Soil Erosion hurts the water supply
URI 2000 (NOEL D. Common Carrier Bureau, Federal Communications Commission July 21, A NOTE ON SOIL EROSION AND ITS
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES IN THE UNITED STATES, http://www.springerlink.com/content/p52677j073241753/fulltext.pdf)
Soil erosion has both on-farm and off-farm impacts. Reduction of soil depth can
impair the land’s productivity, and the transport of sediments can degrade streams,
lakes, and estuaries. When soil particles wash off a field, they may be carried in
runoff until discharged into a water body or stream. Not all agricultural constituents
that are transported from a field reach water systems, but a significant portion does,
especially the more chemically active, finer soil particles. Once agricultural pollutants
enter a water system, they lower water quality and can impose economic losses
on water users. These offsite impacts can be substantial. The offsite impacts of
erosion are potentially greater than the onsite productivity effects in the aggregate
(Foster and Dabney, 1995).
Soil Erosion – ↓ Food Crops

Soil Erosion leads to the destruction of crop land
ScienceDaily 2006 (Mar. 23, Soil Erosion Threatens Environment And Human Health, Study Reports,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060322141021.htm)
Around the world, soil is being swept and washed away 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished, destroying
cropland the size of Indiana every year, reports a new Cornell University study.
Yet the need for food and other agricultural products continues to soar.
"Soil erosion is second only to population growth as the biggest environmental problem the world faces," said David
Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell. "Yet, the problem, which is growing ever more critical, is being ignored
because who gets excited about dirt?"
Plenty of people should be, stressed Pimentel, whose study on the food and environmental threat of soil erosion is
published in a recent issue of the Journal of the Environment, Development and Sustainability (Vol. 8, 2006).
"Erosion is a slow and insidious process," stressed Pimentel. "Yet, controlling soil erosion is really quite simple: The
soil can be protected with cover crops when the land is not being used to grow crops."
Other ways to reduce erosion include reducing the need for people in developing countries to clear forests for
agriculture, overgraze their cattle and remove crop residues for cooking fuel.
The vast majority -- 99.7 percent -- of human food comes from cropland, which is shrinking by more than 10 million
hectares (almost 37,000 square miles) a year due to soil erosion, Pimentel reports, while more people than ever --
more than 3.7 billion people -- are malnourished.
"Erosion is one of those problems that nickels and dimes you to death: One rainstorm can wash away 1 mm (.04
inches) of dirt. It doesn't sound like much, but when you consider a hectare (2.5 acres), it would take 13 tons of
topsoil -- or 20 years if left to natural processes -- to replace that loss," Pimentel said. "And that kind of loss occurs
year after year by wind and rain around the world."
Soil erosion leads to low crop yields

Raloff 84 (Janet, “Soil Losses Eroding Food Security,” Science News. Vol. 126. Issue 14. Pg. 212. 10/6/84)
Soil erosion is a natural physical process. It cannot be prevented. In fact, it is not even cause for much
concern unless the rate of soil loss exceeds the rate of new soil formation. But close to half the world's
croplands are losing topsoil at rates that undermine their inherent productivity, according to a new
study by the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute, a think tank focusing on resource conservation
issues. The study, the first to attempt quantification of global erosion rates, estimates that cropland losses
now exceed new soil formation by 25.4 billion tons per year.
With topsoil being on average only 7 inches deep worldwide, this rate could correspond to mining the
resource at a rate of about 7 percent per decade, according to agricultural economist Lester Brown, one of the
study's authors. That's almost the same rate by which world oil supplies are currently being depleted, he adds.
But in contrast to the concern over oil, he says, world leaders have tended not to worry about quantifying
soil depletion, nor have they redirected national policies toward conserving this resource. And that's
significant, Brown says, because even though the world has survived a sevenfold increase in oil prices during
the last 10 years, it is not well equipped to cope with even a modest rise in food prices. Moreover, he says,
with the growing interdependence of world markets today, "excessive loss of topsoil anywhere
ultimately affects food prices everywhere."
A leading pressure driving farmers to "mine" their soils in a nonsustainable fashion is the ever growing
demand for food. "Each year the world's farmers must now attempt to feed 81 million more people, good
weather or bad," the study notes. To do so, many farmers have abandoned sound soil conservation principles
and taken to "intensified cropping patterns" (less rotation of crops, greater reliance on row crops and more
plantings between fallow periods) and the plowing of marginal land (often hilly, dry or supporting a fragile,
thin topsoil).
In the short term, these measures may generate big gains in productivity, but once the topsoil is reduced to
a few inches or disappears, crop productivity will fall precipitously and, for economic purposes, often
irretrievably.
Soil Erosion – ↓ Food Crops

Soil erosion is causing devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change
Leahy 07 (Stephen, “Environment: Dirt isn’t so Cheap After All” Inter Press Service News
Agency. 2007 <http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39083>)
BROOKLIN, Canada, Aug 30 (IPS) - Soil erosion is the "silent global crisis" that is undermining food
production and water availability, as well as being responsible for 30 percent of the greenhouse gases
driving climate change.
"We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life on Earth," said Andres Arnalds, assistant director of
the Icelandic Soil Conservation Service.
"Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate around the globe, which in turn has devastating
effects on food production and accelerates climate change," Arnalds told IPS from Selfoss, Iceland, host
city of the International Forum on Soils, Society and Climate Change which starts Friday.
Along with many other international partner institutions, Iceland is marking the centenary of its Soil
Conservation Service by convening this forum of experts.
Every year, some 100,000 square kilometres of land loses its vegetation and becomes degraded or turns into
desert.
"Land degradation and desertification may be regarded as the silent crisis of the world, a genuine
threat to the future of humankind," Arnalds said.
Food production has kept pace with population growth by increasing 50 percent between 1980 and 2000. But
it is an open question whether there will be enough food in 2050 with an estimated three billion more mouths
to feed.
That means more food has to be produced within the next 50 years than during the last 10,000 years
combined he noted.
"Global food production per hectare is already declining," said Zafar Adeel, director of the United
Nations University's Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health.
There are a number of reasons for this decline, including the fact that soil degradation is producing
growing shortages of water. Soil and vegetation act as a sponge that holds and gradually releases water,
Adeel explained.
Soil Erosion - ↓ Economy

Soil Erosion Hurts the housing market and jobs.
Soil erosion is the #1 source of pollution to surface water in Maine. Each year rainstorms and snowmelt wash tons
of dirt off the land around Maine.
How could something so ‘natural’ be so bad? Soil erosion is natural after all. However, when we change the
landscape from forest to yards, streets, farm fields, shopping centers and roads, we accelerate soil erosion.
In the USA, soil is eroding at about seventeen times the rate at which it forms.
Erosion results in: (1) higher project costs, (2) damage to aquatic habitat, (3) reduced water quality, (4) elimination
of trout and salmon fisheries, (5) lower shorefront property values, (6) higher property taxes, and (6) loss of business
and jobs. Soil is a valuable resource on the land, but when washed into streams, lakes, and estuaries it is Maine's
biggest water quality problem
Examples of chronic erosion
Soil Erosion – Impact Outweighs

Soil loss outweighs nuclear war and climate change
Mortlock 07 (Dave Favis, Lecturer Queens University Belfast School of Geography. Soil Erosion Site. May 2007
<http://www.soilerosion.net/>)
Soil erosion by water, wind and tillage affects both agriculture and the natural environment. Soil loss, and its
associated impacts, is one of the most important (yet probably the least well-known) of today's
environmental problems (BBC 2000; Guardian 2004).
"The threat of nuclear weapons and man's ability to destroy the environment are really alarming. And
yet there are other almost imperceptible changes - I am thinking of the exhaustion of our natural
resources, and especially of soil erosion - and these are perhaps more dangerous still, because once we
begin to feel their repercussions it will be too late." (p144 of The Dalai Lama's Little Book of Inner Peace:
2002, Element Books, London)
It isn't easy to find comprehensive information on erosion, however. To a large extent this is because
soil erosion does not fit neatly under any one heading: it is studied by geomorphologists, agricultural
engineers, soil scientists, hydrologists and others; and is of interest to policy-makers, farmers,
environmentalists and many other individuals and groups.
The Soil Erosion Site brings together reliable information on soil erosion from a wide range of disciplines
and sources. It aims to be the definitive internet source for those wishing to find out more about soil loss and
soil conservation.
Soil erosion outweighs other env impacts
Lang 6 (Susan S., “’Slow, Insidious’ Soil Erosion Threatens Human Health and Welfare as Well as the Environment, Cornell Study Asserts.”
Chronicle Online – Cornell University. March 20, 2006. <http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/soil.erosion.threat.ssl.html>)
Around the world, soil is being swept and washed away 10 to 40 times faster than it is being
replenished, destroying cropland the size of Indiana every year, reports a new Cornell University study.
"Soil erosion is second only to population growth as the biggest environmental problem the world
faces," said David Pimentel, professor of ecology at Cornell. "Yet, the problem, which is growing ever more
critical, is being ignored because who gets excited about dirt?" Plenty of people should be, stressed
Pimentel, whose study on the food and environmental threat of soil erosion is published in a recent issue of
the Journal of the Environment, Development and Sustainability (Vol. 8, 2006). "Erosion is a slow and
insidious process," stressed Pimentel. "Yet, controlling soil erosion is really quite simple: The soil can be
protected with cover crops when the land is not being used to grow crops." Other ways to reduce erosion
include reducing the need for people in developing countries to clear forests for agriculture, overgraze their
cattle and remove crop residues for cooking fuel. The vast majority -- 99.7 percent -- of human food
comes from cropland, which is shrinking by more than 10 million hectares (almost 37,000 square miles)
a year due to soil erosion, Pimentel reports, while more people than ever -- more than 3.7 billion people
-- are malnourished. "Erosion is one of those problems that nickels and dimes you to death: One
rainstorm can wash away 1 mm (.04 inches) of dirt. It doesn't sound like much, but when you consider a
hectare (2.5 acres), it would take 13 tons of topsoil -- or 20 years if left to natural processes -- to replace that
loss," Pimentel said. "And that kind of loss occurs year after year by wind and rain around the world." The
study, which pulls together statistics on soil erosion from more than 125 sources, reports: * The United
States is losing soil 10 times faster -- and China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster -- than the
natural replenishment rate. * The economic impact of soil erosion in the United States costs the
nation about $37.6 billion each year in productivity losses. Damage from soil erosion worldwide is
estimated to be $400 billion per year. * As a result of erosion over the past 40 years, 30 percent of the
world's arable land has become unproductive. * About 60 percent of soil that is washed away ends up
in rivers, streams and lakes, making waterways more prone to flooding and to contamination from soil's
fertilizers and pesticides. * Soil erosion also reduces the ability of soil to store water and support plant
growth, thereby reducing its ability to support biodiversity. * Erosion promotes critical losses of
water, nutrients, soil organic matter and soil biota, harming forests, rangeland and natural ecosystems.
* Erosion increases the amount of dust carried by wind, which not only acts as an abrasive and air
pollutant but also carries about 20 human infectious disease organisms, including anthrax and
tuberculosis.
AT: Soil Erosion – Impacts Inevitable

Soil Erosion is a natural phenomenon
Ontario Ministry of Agrcultural, food, and rural affairs 2003 (Soil Erosion, causes and effects,
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/87-040.htm)
Soil erosion is a naturally occurring process on all land. The agents of soil erosion are water and wind, each
contributing a significant amount of soil loss each year in Ontario.
Soil erosion may be a slow process that continues relatively unnoticed, or it may occur at an alarming rate causing
serious loss of topsoil. The loss of soil from farmland may be reflected in reduced crop production potential, lower
surface water quality and damaged drainage networks.
Non-UQ Humans always induce Soil Change

Yaalon 2007 (Dan H., is professor emeritus in the Institute of Earth Sciences at Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
Israel, Human-induced Ecosystem and Landscape Processes Always Involve Soil Change.)
Soil, the living skin of Earth derived from weathered rock materials and surficial biota, has been dubbed "Earth's
critical zone" by the US National Research Council. It is an inseparable part of nature's dynamic ecosystems, yet it is
frequently disregarded when discussing landscape processes or resources and the consequences of land-use or land-
cover change (Lambin et al. 2003). A recent review of domesticated nature (Kareiva et al. 2007)--which now
encompasses about 50 percent of Earth's surface--also disregards soil changes, although it does point out that when
humans change nature's landscapes, whether for agriculture or new housing developments, the trade-offs between
the resulting benefits and harms must be understood and managed. Understanding the consequences of humans'
domestication of ecosystem services will be incomplete, however, unless the effects of soil changes--and not only in
the realm of agriculture--are also considered.
AT: Soil Erosion – Alt Causes

Lack of crop coverage and heavy rain are causes of soil erosion
Kaisi and Helmers 08 (Mahdi al-Kaisi is an associate professor of Agronomy and Matt Helmers is an assistant professor in
agriculture and biosystems. “Heavy Rain, Soil Erosion and Nutrient Systems.” Integrated Crop Management News. Iowa State University.
6/5/08.<http://www.extension.iastate.edu/CropNews/2008/0604MAlKaisiMHelmers.htm>)
As we write this article spring rains are coming hard and fast causing substantial soil erosion when soils
are most vulnerable because of degraded crop residue cover, soil preparation by tillage and no crop
canopy.
The soil profiles in most of Iowa are now filled to capacity with water. The profiles are at or near saturation.
Therefore, the intensity and amount of rain we received have exceeded the soil capacity to filter water and
minimize surface runoff even in fields with the most adequate conservation practices.
Why is rainfall so destructive to bare cropland? In a normal rainfall, raindrops range in size from 1 to 7
millimeters in diameter and hit the ground going as fast as 20 miles per hour. The impact of millions of
raindrops hitting the bare soil surface can be incredible, dislodging soil particles and splashing them 3
to 5 feet away .
A heavy rainstorm may splash as much as 90 tons of soil per acre. However, the majority of the soil
splashed is not immediately lost from the field. Most of the splashed soil particles don't leave the field;
they clog surface pores, which in turn reduces water infiltration, increases water runoff, and increases
soil erosion.
Wildfire is another cause of soil erosion
Moench and Fusaro 08 (R. Moench and J. Fusaro. Both are in the Colorado State Forest Service. “Soil Erosion Control after Wildfire”
Colorado State University – Extension Natural Resources. <http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/natres/06308.html>)
The potential for severe soil erosion is a consequence of wildfire because as a fire burns it destroys plant
material and the litter layer. Shrubs, forbs, grasses, trees, and the litter layer break up the intensity of
severe rainstorms. Plant roots stabilize the soil, and stems and leaves slow the water to give it time to
percolate into the soil profile. Fire can destroy this soil protection. There are several steps to take to
reduce the amount of soil erosion. A landowner, using common household tools and materials, can
accomplish most of these methods in the aftermath of a wildfire.
Water – Pollution – Multiple Impacts

Clean water key to stopping biodiversity loss, economic decline, and failed states
USAID January 08, 2007. "Water and Coastal Resources"
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/index.html
Every ecosystem, society, and individual on Earth depends on water. Food security and human health,
energy supplies and industrial production are all dependent on water to a large degree. Water
plays an
important role in regulating global climate. It is essential for plants and wildlife and
ecosystems they
inhabit. Water shortages and poor water management can lead to loss of biodiversity and
agricultural
production, increase in malnutrition and disease, reduced economic growth, social instability, and
conflict.
Water – Pollution – Biodiversity

Water pollution risk biodiversity
World Water Council, 2005, online: http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=21
Growth in human populations, increasing consumption, infrastructure development, land conversion, poor
land use and massive use of pollutants in water all threaten the ecosystem functions that produce our
freshwater resources. Ecosystems evolve far too slow to adapt to quick and brutal changes, and cannot
play their purifying and regulating role anymore. Pollution: With urbanization and industrialization, the
quality of rivers, lakes, and aquifers may deteriorate seriously. This phenomenon has accelerated since
1970’s, due to the increase of human and industrial waste. With current water treatment systems,
eliminating some toxic particles is sometimes not possible anymore. Surface water as well as groundwater
run the risk to be neither proper to human consumption, nor to ecosystems. Biodiversity under threat:
Today, a growing number of species and habitats are disappearing. According to the 2004 IUCN Red List
of Threatened Species, a total of 15,589 species of plants and animals are threatened, facing a high risk of
extinction in the near future, in almost all cases as a result of human activities. Since the beginning of the
century, 50 % of wetlands have disappeared. Since 1990’s, deforestation concerns 19,4 million ha each
year. Water scarcity: Water resources depletion generates tensions among water users and sometimes
between states or countries. Every country wants to maintain sovereignty on its resources and to maximise
its storage and withdrawals. Water scarcity already affects one third of the total world population
(World Water Vision) Flood and drought risks: Ecosystems degradation, especially in wetlands or in the
upstream patch of catchments, reduces their role on flood or drought mitigation.
Water – Pollution – Aquatic Ecosystems

Water pollution is pushing aquatic ecosystems to extinction
USAID Water Team 2k, “Towards a Water Secure Future: USAID’s Obligations In Water Resources
management For FY 2000 In Parts I and II”
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/environment/water/tech_pubs/towards_water_secure.obligations.pdf
Moreover, none of the water scarcity data takes into account that finite water resources are becoming
increasingly polluted. Inadequately treated wastewater from industries and cities; polluted runoff
from agricultural operations; and massive siltation from logging, road construction, and other land use
activities are perhaps the largest culprits. As a result, excessive nutrients, pesticides, heavy metals,
pathogens, sediments, and other pollutants degrade lakes, rivers, and coastal environments to the
detriment of aquatic ecosystems and humans alike. At least 20% of the world’s freshwater fish species
are already extinct, threatened, or endangered (Revenga et al., 2000). While there are many
contributing factors (e.g., habitat loss, freshwater diversions, and climate change), increasingly polluted
waters often shift the balance towards extinction, diminished productivity, and lost ecosystem services.
Water - Pollution - Human Survival

Clean water is key to human survival
McCarthy 03 (Michael, “Water Scarcity could Affect Billions: Is this the Biggest Crisis of All?” Common Dreams.org March 5,
2003. <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm>)
The direst, direct effects of water scarcity will undoubtedly be on health. The presence of water can be a
bane as well as a benefit: Water-related diseases are among the commonest causes of illness and death.
Water-borne illnesses, such as gastric infections leading to diarrhea, are caused by drinking
contaminated water; vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and schistosomiasis, are passed on by the
mosquitoes and small snails that use water to breed. Millions contract such diseases. In the year 2000,
the number of people estimated to have died from water/sanitation associated diseases was 2.2 million,
a million of them from malaria. The majority of victims were aged under five.
The world's soaring demand for fresh water is also causing increasing environmental stress; the stream flows
of about 60 per cent of the world's largest rivers have been interrupted by dams and, of the creatures
associated with inland waters, 24 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are threatened. About 10 per
cent of freshwater fish species have been studied in detail and about a third of these are thought to be
threatened.
But the one hopeful note the report strikes is on the much-discussed possibility of "water wars". It says:
"While water scarcity will intensify conflicts between states, there is little evidence to suggest that these
situations will explode into fully fledged water wars." The report quotes a study that looked at every water-
related interaction between two or more countries over the past 50 years.
Of the 1,831 interactions, the great majority, 1,228, were co-operative. Of the 507 "conflictive" events, only
37 involved violence, of which 21 consisted of military acts (18 between Israel and its neighbors).
Yet the main picture is a distinctly gloomy one – of a vital but limited human resource subject to
increasingly unsatisfiable demands. "Of all the social and natural crises we humans face," said
Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco, which has produced the report, "the water crisis is the
one that lies at the heart of our survival and that of our planet Earth."
Water – Groundwater Key

Sustainability of groundwater is key
International Hydrological Programme, “Coping with water scarcity” Technical Documents
in
Hydrology No. 58 2002
Most of the distinctive hydrogeologic features of arid regions are related to the quantity and quality of
available ground water. In dry regions, groundwater is a very important source of freshwater for
domestic, agricultural, and industrial use, and it may be the only source of water supply over large
parts of the year. Groundwater resources play a significant role in the hydrologic cycle and the
water
balance of a region since they act as a buffer, providing significant amounts of water during years of
low precipitation or storing a significant part of runoff on the occasion of high precipitation. In view
of
meagre recharge in areas of low rainfall, aquifers are destined for ultimate depletion
unless prudent and very
conservative development is carried out. Such development should not seek to extract
more than the longterm amounts of recharge.
Water - ↓ Supply Impacts
Lack of fresh water leads to disease and wars
Vision of Humanity 08 (“Lack of Fresh Water” Vision of Humanity, August 1, 2008.

http://www.visionofhumanity.org/sustainability-peace/challenges-sustainability/fresh-water.php)
Estimates are that water consumption, at current rates of increase will pass the available fresh water
on the planet. This will lead to some areas still having an abundance but others falling well short of what is
needed even for basic survival.
Other practices are also adding to our water shortage one example is salinity, caused by industrial farming
and over-extraction. Additionally, continued degradation of water quality increases the prevalence of
disease.
As demand for fresh water reaches the limits of supply, potential conflicts may loom between regions,
states and nations that share freshwater reserves. Many countries get substantial amounts of their water
from rivers that cross the borders of neighbouring countries where relations are already strained.
Lack of clean water is worse than war, hunger, disease, and civic collapse
McCarthy 03 (Michael, “Water Scarcity could Affect Billions: Is this the Biggest Crisis of All?” Common Dreams.org March 5,
2003. <http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm>)
Glug-glug: Not normally a sound of foreboding. But mankind's most serious challenge in the 21st century
might not be war or hunger or disease or even the collapse of civic order, a UN report says; it may be
the lack of fresh water.
Population growth, pollution and climate change, all accelerating, are likely to combine to produce a drastic
decline in water supply in the coming decades, according to the World Water Development Report, published
today. And of course that supply is already problematic for up to a third of the world's population.
At present 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water and 2.4 billion lack access to proper sanitation,
nearly all of them in the developing countries. Yet the fact that these figures are likely to worsen
remorselessly has not been properly grasped by the world community, the report says. "Despite widely
available evidence of the crisis, political commitment to reverse these trends has been lacking."
Faced with "inertia at the leadership level and a world population not fully aware of the scale of the
problem", the global water crisis will reach unprecedented heights in the years ahead, the report says, with
growing per capita scarcity in many parts of the developing world. And that means hunger, disease and death.
The report makes an alarming prediction. By the middle of the century, it says that, in the worst case, no
fewer than seven billion people in 60 countries may be faced with water scarcity, although if the right
policies are followed this may be brought down to two billion people in 48 nations.
Lack of clean water leads to regional and global wars.

Lonergan 2003 (Steve Director of the Division of Early Warning and Assessment at UNEP, Water and War,
http://www.unep.org/OurPlanet/imgversn/154/lonergan.html)
Problems of water scarcity and water pollution affect human and ecosystem health, and hinder economic and
agricultural development. Local and regional problems, in turn, may affect the rest of the world by threatening food
supplies and global economic development. The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
concludes that these problems could result in a series of local and regional water crises, with serious global
implications.
Is there likely to be violent conflict over water in the future? Past experience suggests that this is unlikely. However,
many claim that the probability of conflict is increasing. The basis for most projections for future conflicts is that
with the growth of demand, the decline in freshwater availability (through groundwater mining and pollution), and
the adverse health effects from poor water quality, scarcity will result in violence and water wars. Yet fighting over
water makes very little sense economically or politically.
There is little question that water scarcity will be a problem in some regions in the future. Global warming is likely
to alter rainfall patterns and evapo-transpiration regimes in many regions, and long-term planning for water supply
must take this into consideration. There is also little question that water will cost more, as it becomes increasingly
scarce. This will necessitate improvements in water efficiency – and possibly the restructuring of economies away
from water-intensive sectors.
Water –Scarcity - Agriculture

Water scarcity threatens agriculture
Diouf 7 (Dr Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO, the coordinating agency within the UN system for World
Water Day this year “Coping with water scarcity” Q&A with FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf 22 March
2007 http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/focus/2007/1000521/index.html accessed July 5, 2008)
You say that agriculture is the world’s number-one user of freshwater. Shouldn’t the solution to water scarcity
lie in agriculture? First of all, there is no magic wand, no flip of the switch that is going to suddenly
eliminate water scarcity. But there are concrete ways to turn the tide against water shortages. We at FAO
recognize that the agriculture sector must take the lead in coping with water scarcity by finding more
effective ways to conserve rain-fed moisture and irrigate farmlands. There is no question that growing
enough food is fundamental to fighting hunger and improving lives on every continent. But agriculture
consumes about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn and up to 95 percent in several developing
countries. To tackle water scarcity even as the demand for food increases, we must support initiatives
to produce more food with proportionally less water. Again, this means protecting our waterways, keeping our forests
healthy and improving the way in which we irrigate crops and manage livestock. Can you give an example of how you would do that?
By thinking both big and small. First FAO advocates short-term, small-scale irrigation projects at the village level, including the
development of low-cost and relatively simple, cost-effective methods which can be used by small farmers to irrigate crops. We have
organized and supported pilot programmes in places like South Africa, Turkey and Mexico that focus on small scale irrigation or
community-based systems for harvesting rainfall. Often, one must help people to recover from severe water and food shortages by
providing new crops and livestock while setting up irrigation projects, as we are doing right now with the support of the government and
international donors in Niger. But the secret to long-term success is to break out of the cycle of responding to
one water emergency after another and to put into place workable, sustainable long-term programmes.
This requires policy changes and cooperation on a larger scale. It means upgrading and improving the
management of the facilities and then working across national borders to develop and protect water
basins.
Water scarcity creates irrigation problems in both the US and developing countries
WP 7 (Doug StruckWashington Post Staff Writer. “Warming Will Exacerbate Global Water Conflicts” Washington
Post Monday, August 20, 2007; A08 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/08/19/AR2007081900967_pf.html accessed July 5, 2008)
Humans have long attempted to reconcile nature's inconstancies with giant plumbing: reservoirs and
dams that hold back floodwaters for more gradual release; dikes and other barriers to protect developed
areas; canals and pipelines to take water from wet areas to dry. But that kind of infrastructure is expensive,
especially for Third World governments. Environmentalists decry the impact on wildlife. And building
dams in earthquake zones tempts disaster. Even in rich California, "there's been no significant reservoir
construction for many years," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the state Farm Bureau. "Reservoir
construction is terribly expensive. It's easier to block a reservoir than to build one." Researcher Seager
suggests that humans ought to bend more to nature than trying to bend nature. "We're not going to be
able to carry on like we are," he said. "Do we really want to keep growing irrigated alfalfa in the high
desert, in New Mexico and Arizona? It really makes no sense." But Mark McKean, a Fresno Valley farmer,
had to leave some of his fields of cotton unwatered when the flow in the irrigation canals stopped this
summer. But he chafes at Seager's suggestion. "Sure, my tomatoes can be grown in other parts of the world,"
he said. "But do we want to give up the economic base that supports small, rural towns? Do we want to
ignore child labor growing our food somewhere else? Do we want to know if pesticides are being used?
What are we willing to pay for all that?"
Water - Scarcity – US Economy

Water scarcity is hurting the public economy both in perception and costs
Ostroff 8 (Jim, “Drought's Impact on Businesses Gaining Scrutiny: Lenders, investors and customers are becoming increasingly aware of
how water shortages can be a negative for businesses.” The Kiplinger Washington Editors, June 3, 2008
http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/drought_impact_on_firms_gains_scrutiny_080603.html accessed July 5, 2008)
Droughts plaguing many parts of the U.S. are nabbing the attention of lenders and investors. They are
zeroing in on businesses' exposure to water supply risks and how they might affect customer service
and costs. Power plants, food processors, mining companies and semiconductor makers could see
disruptions that hurt the bottom line and their reputation with customers and investors. If outages
force a firm to cut production or close facilities, higher costs ensue. Banks are including that assessment
when conducting due diligence on companies' accounting or contingency plans. Look for banks and
Wall Street to hone in on water supply disruption risks when mulling loan applications and evaluating
the outlook for public firms. "[Public] companies provide a great deal of information about potential risks
to their operations, earnings, profits, but they don't do an adequate job of disclosing the risks they face in the
event of water shortages -- even short-term ones," says Marc Levinson, an economist with JPMorgan Chase.
"Most companies that think about water supply risks at all are very shortsighted...they figure they can
truck in water...not only is it very expensive to truck in water, but they'll be in competition with scores of
hundreds of others scrounging to get water at the same time." The risks affect companies in many
parts of the nation. Water shortages loom over many firms in the Southwest, Southeast and parts of the
Midwest and Northwest. Warming temperatures that reduce snowfall in the mountains will prolong
periods of drought. The spring runoff from snow in California, critical to its water supply, is forecast to
be 55% of normal, forcing summer water restrictions.
Companies face reputational risk with investors and customers with water shortage
Ostroff 8 (Jim, “Drought's Impact on Businesses Gaining Scrutiny: Lenders, investors and customers are becoming increasingly aware of
how water shortages can be a negative for businesses.” The Kiplinger Washington Editors, June 3, 2008
http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/drought_impact_on_firms_gains_scrutiny_080603.html accessed July 5, 2008)
Water shortage risks are already an issue in emerging economies, such as in China, India and South
Korea. In those nations and in the U.S., even the potential for problems related to water can influence
perceptions of companies held by individual and commercial customers and investors. Craig Hanson,
deputy director of the World Resources Institute program for people and ecosystems, says: "Companies
should expect they'll face a reputational risk over water usage...[and] companies that are perceived as
water hogs in areas where water is becoming scarce will become targets of community groups."
AT Water – No Scarcity
New and existing infrastructure is definitely sufficient for solving water scarcity
Azam 2 (By M. Zaki Azam “Solving water scarcity problem” May 6, 2002,
http://www.dawn.com/2002/05/06/ebr3.htm accessed July 16, 2008)
The study warned that the water scarcity would be a major constrain on food production, human health
and environmental quality. Many of the countries on food production, human health and environmental
quality. Many of the countries in this category, including Pakistan, will have to divert water from
irrigation to supply their domestic and industrial needs and will need to import more food. However
the study concluded that around 50 per cent of the increase in demand for water by the year 2025, can be
met by increasing the effectiveness of irrigation. While some of the remaining water development needs
can be met by small dams and conjunctive use of aquifers. In some cases medium and large dams may
also be needed. The productivity of irrigation water can be increased in four ways: (i) increasing the
productivity per unit of transpiration; (ii) reducing flows of usable water to sinks and converting this into
productive use; (iii) controlling salinity and pollution and (iv) reallocating water from lower valued to higher
valued crop.
Market Forces solve water scarcity

Zubrzycki 6/4 (Carly Zubrzycki “The rain in Spain…” Adam Smith Institute Saturday, 4 June 2008
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/ accessed July 16, 2008)
While on the other hand, when costs and the decreasing availability of water actually had an effect,
farmers moved towards more efficient irrigation methods and crops that required less water.
Incentives matter. Governments shouldn’t be subsidizing unsustainable lifestyles in arid locations,
especially when that will only worsen the situation. If farming is only economically sustainable with
subsidized water, people should not be farming there. Water should be more expensive where it’s scarce or
hard to access, even if that means fewer farmers or a shift in population towards more fertile areas. As
water gets scarcer, a more market-based system would surely also do more to encourage the
development of private desalination plants and water-saving technology, as opposed to simply pouring
billions of taxpayer dollars into such projects. If farming isn’t working out, Spain should move towards
less water-intensive industries in those areas and import crops from places with more adequate resources and
a comparative advantage. Very high water prices would encourage even the resorts and golf courses to
find ways to reduce water usage rather than search for bureaucratic loopholes. People find ways
around bureaucracies, but it’s much harder to find a way around the market.
AT Water - War Solved Now

Existing development programs solve water scarcity and resource wars.
IRDC 97 (“Helping the Thirsty to Solve Their Water Crisis” IDRC 1997-11-25 http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-5522-
201-1-DO_TOPIC.html accessed July 16, 2008)
Bridge over Troubled Waters IDRC has supported a number of research initiatives to deal with water as
a source of conflict in places where the potential exists and in the Middle East, where water has been
the key natural-resource issue for at least 3 000 years. Dr David Brooks, an IDRC chief scientist and an
expert in this field, writes that "no other region of the world embraces such a large area, with so many people
striving so hard for economic growth on the basis of so little water." IDRC was part of the Canadian
representation on the team discussing water issues during the Middle East peace talks. The talks brought
together Israeli and Palestinian researchers who, until then, did not know, and were unlikely to speak to, one
another. The two teams of researchers are now seeking peaceful and effective means to manage jointly
the Mountain Aquifer, the region's largest source of quality drinking water. The researchers have
identified the problems and defined alternative management options. A second phase of the research is
seeking ways to select among the options. Researchers will also try to define who -- Israel or Palestine and
which group within each country -- would win or lose under each option. This kind of project enables
Canada to contribute to peace and security in a volatile region. IDRC water projects also showcase
Canada's considerable expertise. Hans Schreier says some of the data he collects in his IDRC-funded
research in Asia and the Middle East could be important to Canada. The kinds of storms he is studying in the
Himalayas could provide an indication of what Canada can expect if it experiences significant climate
change. He regards IDRC as "quite unique" in its use of research to seek a solution to what he calls "the crisis
of the year 2000.
Cooperative water sharing negotiations will solve for now, even with conflicts of interest
Spillmann 5 (Kurt R., “Attention is increasingly being drawn towards rivalries around the precious resource
water.” Science Life Published: 06.10.2005, 06:00 http://archiv.ethlife.ethz.ch/e/articles/sciencelife/kolukrsp3.html
Water wars? Accessed July 16, 2008)
In his painstaking analysis of all conflicts related to water listed by the FAO, Aaron T. Wolf concludes that
predictions of water wars are exaggerated and that willingness to co-operate and co-operative solutions
are more often employed to resolve this type of altercation. The German scientist Petra Holtrup has also
found many examples proving the capability, in practice, of numerous non-binding action programmes
which enable those involved to agree on a co-operatively regulated, and therefore non-violent, use of
waterways that flow through more than one country. The Research Center for Security Studies at ETH
Zurich has also shown, within framework of the NCCR North-South Programme, how co-operation can be
fostered with regard to scarce water supplies in the basin of the Nile by the means of so-called
"dialogue workshops“ (1).
Such co-operative solutions nevertheless come in for some fundamental criticism. Co-operation calls for
renunciation, says John Waterbury, political scientist and President of the American University in Beirut.
Waivering one's right to something is fundamentally irreconcilable with one's own interests, he states,
and this is the reason why the problem-solving power of such regulations was, at best, only a "Utopian
vision". It was difficult in practical terms to grasp the concept of "for the common good", which
counted for far less with the individual than costs that touched him or her directly.
AT Water - War Empirically Denied

Water wars are empirically denied – it rarely ever happens
McCarthy 03 (Michael, “Water Scarcity could Affect Billions: Is this the Biggest Crisis of
All?” Common Dreams.org March 5, 2003.
<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm>)
The world's soaring demand for fresh water is also causing increasing environmental stress; the stream flows
of about 60 per cent of the world's largest rivers have been interrupted by dams and, of the creatures
associated with inland waters, 24 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are threatened. About 10 per
cent of freshwater fish species have been studied in detail and about a third of these are thought to be
threatened.
But the one hopeful note the report strikes is on the much-discussed possibility of "water wars". It
says: "While water scarcity will intensify conflicts between states, there is little evidence to suggest that
these situations will explode into fully fledged water wars." The report quotes a study that looked at
every water-related interaction between two or more countries over the past 50 years.
Of the 1,831 interactions, the great majority, 1,228, were co-operative. Of the 507 "conflictive" events,
only 37 involved violence, of which 21 consisted of military acts (18 between Israel and its neighbors).
AT Water – No War - People Migrate

Water alone can’t cause a violent enough resource war—people migrate instead.
Spillmann 5 (Kurt R., “Attention is increasingly being drawn towards rivalries around the precious resource
water.” Science Life Published: 06.10.2005, 06:00 http://archiv.ethlife.ethz.ch/e/articles/sciencelife/kolukrsp3.html
Water wars? Accessed July 16, 2008)
One area that is plagued by extreme drought is the belt stretching from Morocco in Africa's north-east all
the way to Oman. Individuals living in this region have less than 500 cubic metres of water per year at
their disposal, which is the equivalent of less than 1,400 litres per day. When the 70 per cent employed in
agriculture and the 20 per cent used by industry are deducted from this, it leaves only around 10 per cent–
roughly 140 litres per person per day–for household and personal use. (By comparison Europeans use
200 to 300 litres and North Americans 500 litres a day for their personal and household needs.) The crux of
the matter is that precisely in these regions the population is strongly increasing. Under these conditions
isn't it inevitable that armed conflict will result over available water supplies and the courses of rivers?
As unfortunate as the current situation and predictions are for this region, from historical experience we can
deduce that, to date, water alone has never been the sole source of violent conflict or war.
Conflicts about water reflect the nature of this commodity. In contrast to land, water cannot be
occupied and thus become immovable property. Water flows, falls as rain, sometimes here, sometimes
there, floods, disappears; it is not hard, like a stone, durable like a mountain or solid like a piece of land.
Water doesn't seem to engage our feelings in the same way as the ownership of a plot of earth does and
this is why skirmishes about water are generally less intractable. Just as water flows around obstacles or
avoids them, faced with a glut or scarcity of water people react with mobility–usually by fleeing, and
water conflicts appear to be carried out with less aggression than conflicts over land.
Desertification: Unsustainable Ag Causes

Unsustainable agriculture, in its myriad of forms, causes desertification.
UNCCD 8 [United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, “World Day to Combat Desertification 17 June
2008,” June 17, http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/june17/2008/menu.php?newch=l3]
Unsustainable agriculture has direct and strong impact on the soil to the point that it cannot regenerate
naturally. Soil nutrients and organic matter begin to diminish as intensive agriculture removes
quantities of nutrients greater than the soil’s natural regeneration capacities. As a consequence, the soil
is unable to recover, as it does during fallow periods, resulting an ever-increasing spiral of land
degradation and desertification.
The principal causes exacerbating land degradation derives from the farmers’ determination to maximize soil
productivity, which include: crops cultivated in areas at high risk from drought; shortening of crop
cycles and the reduction of fallow periods; insufficient use of fertilizer after harvesting; inadequate crop
rotation or worse, monoculture; intensive labour; intense breeding and overgrazing with pressure on
vegetation and soil trampling by livestock; separation of cattle rearing and agriculture, eliminating a
source of natural fertilizer or organic matter used to regenerate the soil; deforestation; bush and forest
fires; in mountainous regions, crops are cultivated along the downward sloping face rather than following the
natural contour lines of the mountain; deterioration of terraces and other soil and water conservation
techniques.
Desertification: Uniqueness – Arable Land Decreasing
Arable land is steadily decreasing.
Jiao 8 [Wu, China Daily, “Arable land reserves continue to decline,” April 17,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-04/17/content_6624879.htm]
The country's arable land bank fell by 40,700 hectares last year, to 121.73 million hectares, still above
the government's 120 million "critical" mark, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) said yesterday.
The figures were published in the 2007 National Land and Resources Communiqu. The total arable land
area at the end of 2006 was 122 million hectares, the MLR report said.
Desertification: Impact – Large Scale
Desertification could affect one third of all land and one billion people.
Munir 4 [Shafqat, September 1, “Desertification, Drought hit sustainable development, food security”
http://www.jdhr.org/publications/papers/Desertification%20Article%20for%20PE.pdf
Desertification has long been recognized as a major economic, social, and environmental problem of
concern to many countries in all regions of the world. Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-
arid, and dry sub-humid areas. Primarily human activities and climatic variations cause desertification. It
does not refer to the expansion of existing deserts. It occurs because dry-land ecosystems, which cover
over one third of the world's land area, are extremely vulnerable to over-exploitation and
inappropriate land-use. Poverty, political instability, deforestation, overgrazing, and bad irrigation practices
could all undermine the land's productivity. Over 250 million people are directly affected by
desertification in the world. In addition, some one billion people in over 100 countries are at risk.
These people include many of the world's poorest, most marginalized, and politically weak citizens.
Desertification: Impact – War/Laundry List
Desertification results in food insecurity, droughts, and wars – hundreds of thousands die.
Koohafkan 96 [A.P., Senior Officer, Environment and Sustainable Development, “Desertification, drought and
their consequences,” http://www.fao.org/sd/epdirect/epan0005.htm]
By impoverishing the natural potential of the ecosystems, desertification also reduces agricultural yields,
making them more unpredictable. It therefore affects the food security of the people living in the
affected areas. The people develop a survival strategy in order to attend to their most urgent
requirements, and this in turn helps to aggravate desertification and hold up development. The most
immediate and frequent consequence of these survival attitudes is the increased over-exploitation of
accessible natural resources. This strategy is often accompanied by a breakdown in solidarity within the
community and within households, and encourages individualism and exclusion. It leads to conflict
between different ethnic groups, families and individuals. Lastly, desertification considerably heightens
the effects of climatic crises (droughts) and political crises (wars), generally leading to migration,
causing suffering and even death to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.
These consequences, in turn, weaken the economies of the developing countries affected by
desertification, particularly when they have no other resources than their agriculture. This is
particularly true in the African countries in the dry zones: their economy is unable to offset the increasingly
serious effects of desertification, and they have to deal with emergency situations created by drought and
desertification despite the increasing debt burden that is reducing their possibility of making productive
investment in order to break the spiral of underdevelopment.
Desertification: Impact – Biodiversity (I/L)
Desertification destroys biodiversity, which destroys food supplies and medical

opportunities.
Another consequence of desertification at the local and global level is the reduction in biodiversity, since
it contributes to the destruction of the habitats of animal and vegetable species and micro-organisms.
It encourages the genetic erosion of local livestock and plant varieties and species living in fragile
ecosystems. It is extremely difficult to put a figure on this loss because of our inadequate familiarity with the
features, the siting and the economic importance of the biodiversity of the dry zones. A substantial part of it is
still fairly unknown to scientists, even though the local people are very familiar with it. Reducing the
biodiversity directly affects the food and health of the local people who rely on a large number of
different animal and vegetable species. But it is also a loss to the whole of mankind. Many genetic
strains of cultivated plants which form the basis of the food and health of the world's population
originate from the dry zones: their disappearance can affect the possibility of producing plant-based
medicines to combat specific diseases or epidemics.
Desertification destroys biodiversity – specific scenario.
When the transformation of rangeland to irrigated cropland results in desertification, the effect on
biodiversity is in the loss of natural ecosystems. When the overexploitation of rangeland results in
desertification, the effects on biodiversity are first expressed in the direct loss of plant species and the
animals associated with them, and later in the loss of topsoil and the potential for rehabilitating
biodiversity. These biodiversity losses, both in goods and services, further exacerbate desertification in
the affected areas. They also affect adjacent and other areas, that used to enjoy some of the services,
such as aquifer recharge for example.
Desertification: Impact – Water Scarcity (I/L)
Desertification leads to drought.
Droughts occur frequently in the areas affected by desertification, and are generally a feature of their
natural climate. The relations between desertification and drought on the one hand, and human influence on
the other, are complex. Occasional droughts (due to seasonal or inter-year variations in rainfall) and
long-term droughts covering wide areas are both caused or aggravated by the influence of man on the
environment (the reduction in vegetation cover, the change in the Albedo effect, changes in the local
climate, the greenhouse effect, etc.). Human influence can also hasten desertification and aggravate the
negative consequences on man. But the degradation of land due to desertification has a serious
compounding effect on drought, and thereby reduces the chances of the local people to cope with
difficult periods.
Desertification depletes ground water reserves.
Lastly, desertification directly reduces the world's fresh water reserves. It has a direct impact on river
flow rates and the level of groundwater tables. The reduction of river flow rates and the lowering of
groundwater levels leads to the silting up of estuaries, the encroachment of salt water into water tables, the
pollution of water by suspended particles and salination, which in turn reduces the biodiversity of
fresh and brackish water and fishing catches, interfering with the operation of reservoirs and irrigation
channels, increasing coastal erosion and adversely affecting human and animal health. Lastly,
desertification leads to an accelerated and often unbridled exploitation of underground fossil water
reserves, and their gradual depletion.
Desertification destroys quality water sources.
Diallo 4 [Hama Arba, UNCCD Executive Secretary, “Joining Up to Stop Desertification,”

http://www.itto.or.jp/live/Live_Server/733/tfu.2004.02(17-18).e.pdf]
Desertification also has serious natural consequences. It can make land areas more flood-prone, cause soil
salinisation and lead to the deterioration of water quality. Unsustainable irrigation practices can dry the
rivers that feed large lakes; the Aral Sea and Lake Chad, for example, have both seen their shorelines
shrink dramatically in recent years. Land degradation is also a leading source of land-based pollution in
the oceans.
Desertification: Impact – Global Warming (+) Feedback Cycle
Desertification and global warming contribute to each other – solving either problem will
solve the other.
Climate change, mainly global warming, results from non-sustainable development: emission of greenhouses
gases coupled with destruction of their natural sinks vegetation. Reduction of soil plant cover in drylands
due to the desertification process causes further reduction of sinks, i.e., global warming, which in turn
exacerbates desertification. Warming increases evapotranspiration hence aridity, thus bringing more
drylands under the risk of desertification. Loss of surface moisture due to desertification releases solar
energy, otherwise expended on evaporation, to warming of the lower atmosphere. This increases
warming and reduces rainfall. Thus, desertification and climate change are interlinked by positive
feedback relations. Desertification and climate change are therefore a manifestation of non-sustainable
development. Desertification can result from non- sustainable water resource development and use, and
climate change may further reduce water supplies.
AT Desertification: Organic Agriculture Now
The UNCCD has a framework set up that uses a diverse set of techniques to bring organic
agriculture anywhere.
UNCCD 8 [United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, “World Day to Combat Desertification 17 June
2008,” June 17, http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/june17/2008/menu.php?newch=l3]
The UNCCD is providing a universal legal policy and advocacy framework for its 193 Parties to
combat desertification and land degradation. In implementing the Convention, the great leverage has been
made through the unique participatory process of local stakeholders, including farmers and rural
populations that offer a number of possibilities to illustrate. In addition, capacity building, sharing of best
practices and case studies, partnership development and awareness raising are some of the areas to be
refocused under the newly adopted Ten-year strategic plan and framework to enhance the
implementation of the Convention (2008-2018). The UNCCD supports member Parties to combat land
degradation for sustainable agriculture as the way for future.
Organic agriculture solves all the root causes of desertification.
IFOAM 6 [International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement, EU, “Organic Agriculture’s Role in
Combating Desertification,” http://www.ifoam.org/organic_facts/benefits/pdfs/IFOAM_Role_of_OA_in_
combating_desertification.pdf]
Organic Agriculture increases the resilience of soils to both water stress and nutrient loss. It
contributes to combating desertification by preventing soil erosion and land degradation as well as by
helping rehabilitate degraded land.
Organic Agriculture helps: Improve soil fertility by maintaining and building a fertile living soil
through frequent organic matter inputs, sustained soil cover, crop rotations and intercropping. Organic
Agriculture farming systems integrate crops and animals and can therefore reduce overgrazing and
facilitate nutrient recycling on the farm. Prevent wind and water erosion of the soils through a better,
more stable soil structure and texture and through persistent and diversified soil cover and agro-
forestry. Improve water infiltration and retention capacity through high levels of organic matter and
permanent soil cover, such as cover crops or mulch, which substantially reduce the amount of water
needed for irrigation. Reduce surface and ground water consumption and subsequent soil salinization
through increased water retention capacity, reduction of water evaporation, and the creation of suitable
micro-climates in dry areas through diversified organic agro-forestry systems that can attract and
retain atmospheric humidity. Reduce ground and surface water contamination by refraining from the
use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, thereby protecting the little water available in dry areas from
pesticide contamination and nitrate and phosphate leaching.
Organic agriculture promotes a wide range of techniques to solve desertification.
IFOAM 8 [International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement, EU, “How Organic Agriculture
contributes to combat Desertification,” June 16, http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=23735]
Combating desertification requires an integrated approach. Organic Agriculture [1], including
techniques such as windbreaks, shelterbelts and reforestation, should be promoted and strengthened with
socio-economic measures that address insecure land tenure systems and promote sustainable human
settlements.
Organic Agriculture helps to improve soil fertility, prevent wind and water erosion, improve water
infiltration and retention capacity and reduce surface and ground water consumption and
contamination – all measures contributing to bringing land back to life.
Gerald A. Hermann, IFOAM’s President, emphasizes that “Farm practices that do not take care of the soil
and its organic and living content undermine the very resource agriculture depends on – the land.”
AT Desertification: Uniqueness – Arable Land Up

No starvation – plenty of arable land and agricultural transitions solve.
Phair 8 [John Today’s Farmer, “Earth has enough resources for both food and fuel, U.S.-based researcher says,”
April 26, http://cgi.bowesonline.com/pedro.php?id=98&x=story&xid=396234]
Nelson says there is enough arable land available to grow all the food and fuel the world needs, as well
as providing manufacturers with a source of affordable feedstocks and raw materials. “I want to make it
very clear that we can get all the material we need for all the products we need from the crops we grow.”
Nelson was a keynote speaker at the Growing the Margins conference in London. He said the it’s an amazing
time for farmers, but warned no one should underestimate the amount of transition and change that
agriculture must undergo in the near future. “There is a major re-alignment of agri-business, chemical,
bio-tech and petroleum companies already in progress and that will change the entire face of
agriculture. I can’t stress that too much.”
AT Desertification: Turn – Prioritizing the Environment
Desertification leads to adaptation which solves
While the survival attitudes caused by desertification have often led to a decline in agricultural know-how,
they have conversely encouraged the development of technical know-how, particularly relating to the
environment and conservation. The micro-undertakings that have been implemented in many places over
the past fifteen years have made it possible to build up a store of know-how to be able to implement new
approaches. In many regions, the perception by the rural people of the importance of their environment
and the priority given to a better relationship with the environment, have also changed. More
increasingly, rural people are realising that:
-a fragile environment on which they depend for their survival is being neglected or over-exploited,
and it is now necessary to rehabilitate it and manage it sustainably;
-the environment belongs primarily to them, and that they must take the responsibility for the land
and set up organisations (groups, cooperatives, village development associations and other local
associations). Greater awareness at the highest level of government has also made it possible to draft and
adopt the International Convention on Desertification, and the undertaking by the Heads of State of most of
the world's countries to enter a partnership contract to effectively combat desertification by taking a
participatory approach.
AT Desertification: Alt Cause
Various human activities cause desertification.
Even though the cycles of drought years and climatic changes can contribute to the advance of
desertification, it is mainly caused by changes in the ways man uses the natural resources, mainly by
over-grazing, land clearance, over-cropping cultivated land and wood formations and more generally
using land in a way that is inappropriate for the local conditions. Human activities connected with
agriculture, livestock and forestry production vary widely from one country and from one type of society to
another, as do the strategies for land-use and the technologies employed.
High population and government policy are amongst the causes of desertification.
Mwanundu and Lubbock 6 [Sheila, senior technical adviser for environment and natural resource
management, Annina, senior technical adviser for gender and poverty targeting, IFAD “Gender and Desertification:
Expanding Roles for Women to Restore Drylands,” May, http://www.ifad.org/pub/gender/desert/gender_desert.pdf]
Desertification refers to the process of land degradation that results from various factors in arid, semi-arid
and dry sub-humid areas. It is a process by which drylands lose their productive capacity, leading to food
insecurity and poverty, in a cause-effect relationship. Characterized by climate variability, these lands sustain
pastoralists and small-scale farmers, but are susceptible to desertification as a result of increasing human
population, inappropriate government land-use policies, settlement, climate change, deforestation,
expropriation of rangelands, land clearance, overgrazing, inappropriate irrigation practices, political
instability and poverty. The livelihoods of over 1.2 billion people inhabiting dryland areas in 110 countries
are currently threatened by drought and desertification.
Salinization is the main cause of desertification.
Nasr 99 [Mamdouh, Center for Development Research, Bonn, “Assessing Desertification and Water Harvesting in
the Middle East and North Africa: Policy Implications,” Discussion Papers on Development Policy, No. 10,
http://www.zef.de/fileadmin/webfiles/downloads/zef_dp/zef_dp10-99.pdf]
Salinization is the main desertification problem in irrigated agriculture. Salinization involves a number
of interrelated processes occuring in the soil, for example waterlogging, increasing salt content, and
alkalinization, in which some nutrients can no longer be absorbed due to the increasing pH-value of
the soil. This problem is caused by the overuse of water through unsuitable irrigation techniques,
accompanied by inefficient drainage systems. This type of desertification is to be seen in some of the
irrigated agriculture in Iraq and Egypt.
AT Desertification: Abatement Measures Solve
Windbreaks can prevent desertification.
USGS 97 [Publications Service Center, “Desertification,” Oct 29, http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/deserts/desertification/

At the local level, individuals and governments can help to reclaim and protect their lands. In areas of
sand dunes, covering the dunes with large boulders or petroleum will interrupt the wind regime near
the face of the dunes and prevent the sand from moving. Sand fences are used throughout the Middle
East and the United States, in the same way snow fences are used in the north. Placement of straw grids,
each up to a square meter in area, will also decrease the surface wind velocity. Shrubs and trees planted
within the grids are protected by the straw until they take root. In areas where some water is available
for irrigation, shrubs planted on the lower one-third of a dune's windward side will stabilize the dune.
This vegetation decreases the wind velocity near the base of the dune and prevents much of the sand from
moving. Higher velocity winds at the top of the dune level it off and trees can be planted atop these flattened
surfaces.
Cacti can reverse the effects of desertification.
IFAD 7 [August 20, “Opuntia spp: an efficient tool to combat desertification,” http://www.ifad.org/lrkm/tans/7.htm]
Marginal lands are fragile ecosystems, and when subjected to ploughing and indiscriminate vegetation
removal the result has been large-scale degradation and destruction of vegetative cover. The increasing
scarcity, if not disappearance, of several plant species indicates the magnitude of genetic and edaphic losses.
Significant achievements in desertification control using cactus to reverse the desertification trend and
restore the vegetative cover in marginal arid and semi-arid areas, appropriate integrated packages can
be applied for rangeland monitoring, livestock husbandry, and natural resources conservation.
Spineless cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica), a drought- and erosion-tolerant plant, is being used advantageously
in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco to slow and direct sand movement, enhance the restoration of
vegetative cover, and avoid the destruction by water of the land terraces built to reduce runoff.
Cacti can adapt to desertified regions.
IFAD 7 [August 20, “Opuntia spp: an efficient tool to combat desertification,” http://www.ifad.org/lrkm/tans/7.htm]
The increased importance of cacti, such as Opuntia species, in arid zones is because of their ability to (i)
grow in “deserts” and their drought tolerance; (ii) produce forage, fruit, and other useful products;
and (iii) mitigate long-term degradation of ecologically fragile environments.The various Opuntia
species have developed phenological, physiological and structural adaptations favouring survival in arid
environments, in which water is the main factor limiting the development of most plant species. Pre-eminent
among these adaptations are asynchronous reproduction and its crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM),
which combine with structural adaptations, such as succulence, to allow this plant to continue the
assimilation of carbon dioxide during long periods of drought. In this way, acceptable productivity levels
are attained even in years of severe drought.
They can develop in severely degraded soils, which are inadequate for other crops. Opuntia spp. have a great
capacity for adaptation and are ideal for responding to global environmental changes. Their root
characteristics avoid wind and rain erosion, encouraging their growth in degraded areas.
Deforestation – Extinction
Deforestation causes biodiversity loss and human extinction
Akhand Jyoti 3 (Akhand Jyoti is the leading magazine in Mathura, India. “The Disaster of Deforestation” March-April 2003.
http://www.akhandjyoti.org/?Akhand-Jyoti/2003/Mar-Apr/Deforestation/)
Imagining Earth without forests is a horrifying picture to conceive. As its knowledge base has expanded and
deepened, mankind has realised that forests are extremely important to the survival of humans and other life forms on
earth. Yet deforestation continues unabated in different parts of the world. According to the World Resource Institute based at Washington DC (U.S.A.), the
rates of rainforest destruction are 2.4 acre per second, 149 acres per minute, 214000 acres per day and 78 million acres per year. Literature survey and
research by Stephen Hui reveals that British Columbia has about 40% of its original forests remaining, while Europe has less than half; the United States
have approximately 1-2% of their original forest cover; more
than 80% of the planet’s natural forests have already been
destroyed.1 This article examines the importance of forests, the effects of deforestation on health and environment and an effective remedy to
replenish the flora already lost. Plants and animals, along with microorganisms, comprise life on Earth. Herbivorous animals sustain their life by consuming
plants. Carnivorous animals and birds kill herbivorous animals for food; therefore indirectly they also depend on plants. Sea creatures eat aquatic plants and
humans consume crop plants. A large variety of birds feed on seeds. There would rarely be any animal or bird who do not use plants directly or indirectly to
satisfy their food requirements. It is thus not surprising that tropical forests are the home to 70% of the world’s plants and animals (more than 13 million
distinct species) 30% of all bird species and 90% of invertebrates.2 Loss
of forests has led to the extinction of thousands of
species, estimated to be 50000 species annually. Besides being the source for food, plants help us in a
number of other ways. Animals, including humans, inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; plants
take up carbon dioxide and in return they release oxygen – this exchange is very important. Forests in
particular act as a huge carbon dioxide sink. If there were not enough trees to absorb carbon dioxide,
its accumulation would make the environment poisonous. Over the last 150 years, the amount of carbon dioxide has increased
by about 25%.3 Carbon-dioxide also contributes to global warming.
Deforestation causes biodiversity loss and extinction

Rochen and Stock 98 (Andy Rochen and Jocelyn Stock are undergraduate researchers at the University of Michigan. “Deforestation
and Society” http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/deforestation.htm)
To understand why deforestation is such a pressing and urgent issue, forests must first be given credit for
what they bring to global ecosystems and the quality of life that all species maintain. Tropical Rainforests
presently give a place to call home for 50% - 90% of all organisms, 90% of our relatives, the primates, and
50 million creatures that can live no place but the rich rainforests (World Rainforest Movement 16). Not only
are other species at risk, but the human race also benefits from what the trees give. From something as minor as
the spices that indulge food to life giving medicines, the rainforests amplify and save lives. According to the World
Rainforest Movement, 25% of medicines come from the forests (28). This is a number that does not do
justice to all the cures that have yet to be discovered or that have been destroyed. The forests give life, not
only to other species, but they help to prolong the human race. The forests have global implications not just on life but on the
quality of it. Trees improve the quality of the air that species breath by trapping carbon and other particles produced by pollution. Trees determine rainfall and
replenish the atmosphere. As more water gets put back in the atmosphere, clouds form and provide another way to block out the sun’s heat. Trees are what cool
and regulates the earth’s climate in conjunction with other such valuable services as preventing erosion, landslides, and making the most infertile soil rich with
life. Mother earth has given much responsibility to trees.
Deforestation causes biodiversity loss and extinction

Abiola 97 (Jayeola Omotola Abiola is an Undergraduate, Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, College of Environmental
Resources Management, University of Agriculture, P.M.B. 2240, AbeoLuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. “FORESTRY FOR SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT: TOWARD THE 21st CENTURY” http://www.fao.org/forestry/docrep/wfcxi/publi/V8/Ee/V8E_E1.HTM)
Forest degradation as a result of deforestation ignites a lot of problems for human existence and the
problem if unchecked can cause further ecological problems leading to human extinction. Forest clearing due
to logging, land degradation resulting from shifting cultivation social and economic development, range10 depletion as a result of
overgrazing, project execution without environmental impact assessment (EIA) leads to climatic changes, global warming,
loss of biological diversity pollution and desertification. The tropical forest ecosystem which has been
described as home to more than half the earth's species (Spore 59 1995) has been disappearing at the rate of tens of
thousands of square kilometers per year. Over this period, tropical deforestation rate increased by more than 50 percent and the world
lost 10% of its tropical forest. Loss of biological diversity is another major area of` concern in forestry for
sustainable development. Countless plants and animals have been driven into extinction through
deforestation, thus contributing to the build up of green house gases. Biodiversity is a comprehensive word for the
degree of nature variety including both the number and frequency of ecosystems, species and genes in a given assemblage (Mc Neely
1988). Biological diversity is a word which embraces both species richness and genetic diversity of an
ecosystem, both of which are threatened. Throughout the world, species extinction and a reduction in
genetic variability is taking place at rates never before witnessed, especially in the tropical forests
which are often thought of as being the richest area. These losses can be attributed to various factors including
pollution, physical disturbance of the forest, exploitation for food and other uses, deliberate extirpation, habitat loss and fragmentation.
Deforestation – Global Disease Spread/Extinction
Deforestation causes human extinction through new disease outbreaks
Butler 7 (Rhett Butler has been researching and studying rainforests since 1995. “INCREASE OF TROPICAL DISEASES”
http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0904.htm)
The emergence of tropical diseases and outbreaks of new diseases, including nasty hemorrhagic fevers like ebola
and lassa fever, are a subtle but serious impact of deforestation. With increased human presence in the
rainforest, and exploiters pushing into deeper areas, man is encountering "new" microorganisms with
behaviors unlike those previously known. As the primary hosts of these pathogens are eliminated or
reduced through forest disturbance and degradation, disease can break out among humans. Although
not unleashed yet, someday one of these microscopic killers could lead to a massive human die-off as
deadly for our species as we have been for the species of the rainforest. Until then, local populations will continue
to be menaced by mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever, Rift Valley fever, and malaria, and water-borne diseases like cholera.
Many emergent and resurgent diseases are directly linked to land alterations which bring humans in closer contact with such pathogens.
For example, malaria and snailborne schistosomiasis have escalated because of the creation of artificial pools of water like dams, rice
paddies, drainage ditches, irrigation canals, and puddles created by tractor treads. Malaria is a particular problem in deforested and
degraded areas, though not in forested zones where there are few stagnant ground pools for mosquito breeding. These pools are most
abundant in cleared regions and areas where tractors tear gashes in the earth. Malaria is already a major threat to indigenous peoples who
have developed no resistance to the disease nor any access to antimalarial drugs. Malaria alone is cited as being responsible for killing
an estimated 20 percent of the Yanomani in Brazil and Venezuela. Malaria—caused by unicelluar parasites transferred in the saliva of
mosquitoes when they bite—is an especially frightening disease for its drug-resistant forms. Thanks to poor prescribing techniques on
the part of doctors, there are now strains in Southeast Asia reputed to be resistant to more than 20 anti-malarial drugs. There is serious
concern that global climate change will affect the distribution of malaria, which currently infects roughly 270 million people worldwide
and kills 1-2 million a year— 430,000-680,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa alone. The outbreak of disease in the tropics does not
affect only the people of those countries, since virtually any disease can be incubated for enough time to allow penetration into the
temperate developed countries. For example, any Central African doctor infected with the ebola virus from a
patient can board a plane and land in London within 10 hours. The virus could quickly spread,
especially if airborne, among the city's population of 8 million. Additionally, every person at the
airport who is exposed can unknowingly carry the pathogen home to their native countries around the
world.
Deforestation – Poverty
Deforestation causes poverty
Jakarta Post 7 (“Avoiding deforestation will help eradicate poverty” http://westpapuafree.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/avoiding-

deforestation-will-help-eradicate-poverty/)
Many understand that deforestation contributes a lot to global warming, but few are aware that forest
plundering will lead to poverty. On the sidelines of the UN climate change conference in Bali, Papua’s
Governor Barnabas Suebu, one of Time’s Hero of the Environment awardees, talked to The Jakarta Post contributor I.
Christianto about his efforts to combat poverty through the protection of 31-million hectares of forest remaining
in the province. Question: You often mention Papua’s forests are rich but the people are poor. What are you trying to say? Answer:
Papua is impoverished. The state of people’s health, their nutrition, education, housing and clean water,
to name a few, is still very poor. It will worsen if the forest is destroyed. Therefore we are trying to protect
our forest and stop deforestation. There must be a funding mechanism from the international community, an issue that we have
discussed with some parties like Greenpeace. The fund must go to the people to improve their welfare. No single tree can be felled.The
benefit of forest exploitation for the local government and people is trivial, but the impact is devastating,
including the loss of rich biodiversity inside the forest. There’s no benefit at all to plunder the forest, as it
is the people who are then made to suffer. Logging activities, for example, have impoverished the people.
A timber log is valued at US$10, but the price can climb to more than $10,000 after being processed into wooden goods. That’s why we
have introduced a policy aimed at benefiting both the government and people.
Deforestation Good – Economy/Food

Deforestation is key to industry, food production, housing and economic growth
Fiset 7 (Nathalie Fiset, M.D., is an expert author at ezinearticles.com. “Benefits of Deforestation” March 2007.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Benefits-of-Deforestation&id=504455)
Whenever people talk about deforestation, usually the things that spring to mind are negative thoughts brought on mostly by media
hypes and environmentalist drives. People think about global warming, depletion of natural resources, and the casual extinction of
indigenous fauna and flora. Yet people don't seem to realize that there are actually quite a few benefits of deforestation.
One of the easiest benefits of deforestation to spot are the economic ones. Lumber products are one of the most staple
constructive materials in human society. Whether it's raw lumber used for making tables and houses, or paper and other
wood by-products, we simply cannot live without the use of lumber. Like steel and stone, wood is one of the most basic
natural resources, and unlike steel and stone, it is renewable simply by growing more trees. The only real trick to balancing it's
consumption is to grow more trees to replace the ones taken. On a similarly related note, keep in mind that a lot of jobs revolve
around the use of lumber. Wood cutters aside, there are those who work in processing plants to make
glue from wood sap, process pulp into paper, and others. This is another benefit of deforestation; it
opens more job opportunities for people who would otherwise be unemployed. These job opportunities are more than simply a
humanitarian concept; society at large would suffer if all of the people working in the wood industry were to
suddenly find themselves jobless. This benefit of deforestation not only covers the people who cut down
trees and process them, but also extends to the people who "clean up" after them. For every patch of forest
cut down, arable land becomes available for farmers, or can be used as an area to place urban living
sites like apartments, houses, and buildings. The number of people employed by such a construction project are many and
varied. Or, if the city/government mandates replanting trees to replace the lost ones, then jobs are also provided for those people who do
the seeding after a patch of forest is stripped. Thinking about it, the cleared areas are places which provide a lot of
potential for growth, and this is yet another benefit of deforestation. As stated above, arable land is
valuable, and the act of deforestation to clear a place for farm land provides a much needed additional
food source for man. More often than not, the soil in a forest is much richer than that of regular farm lands because of the wide
variety of life it supports. This new land area grants a much needed place to grow a food supply to deal with the planet's steadily
expanding population of humanity. Then, of course, there is the fact that these cleared areas may be razed for urban renewal. Given
our burgeoning population growth, additional living areas made on cleared forest land is another
benefit of deforestation. These places can be converted into more than just housing areas. Buildings which can house offices for
work, or factories to produce clothing and other essential items, or even research facilities for things like new medical or technological
advances can be placed in these deforested areas. Lastly, another benefit of deforestation to consider is the access it provides to other
natural resources that may lay within the forest's land area. Some places with heavy forests are home to iron ore, mineral, and even oil
deposits which can be used for man's needs. These natural resources would otherwise lay dormant and untapped unless people access
them. The act of deforestation may not be entirely necessary to get at these deposits sometimes, but coupled with the advantages given
above, the combination of opening up a new mine or oil well when taken with extra living spaces or farm lands for food makes a lot of
sense. So, given all of the benefits of deforestation outlined above, you can see that more often than not, the good
outweighs the bad. The planet's environment may indeed suffer from the effects of deforestation, but
that is due to irresponsible use of the resources and other benefits provided, not the deforestation itself.
As people living on the planet, our duty is not to "hold back" and stop cutting trees. It is to use what we glean from the Earth responsibly
and wisely for humanity and the planet's benefit.
AT Deforestation - Causes Global Cooling
Despite increases in CO2, deforestation causes global cooling
Bala et al. 7 (G. Bala, K. Caldeira, M. Wickett, T. J. Phillips, D. B. Lobell, C. Delire, and A. Mirin, “Combined climate and carbon-cycle
effects of large-scale deforestation” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1871823)
Atmospheric CO2 content is greater in the Global deforestation experiment by 381 ppmv because of both
the release of carbon stored in trees in the early 21st century and the loss of CO2 fertilization of
forested ecosystems seen in the Standard simulation (Fig. 1). Despite higher atmospheric CO2
concentrations, the global- and annual-mean temperature in the Global case is cooler by ≈0.3 K than the
Standard case. Thus, on a global-mean basis, the warming carbon-cycle effects of deforestation are
overwhelmed by the cooling biophysical effects. Relative to the Standard case, the atmospheric CO2 concentration is higher by 299,
110, and 5 ppmv in the Tropical, Temperate, and Boreal cases. The global-mean temperature differences relative to the Standard case in year 2100 in the
Tropical, Temperate, and Boreal experiments are +0.7 K, −0.04 K, and −0.8 K, respectively (Fig. 1), implying that the combined carbon-cycle and
biophysical effects from tropical, temperate, and boreal deforestation are, respectively, net warming, near-zero temperature change, and net cooling. These
latitude-band experiments thus suggest that projects in the tropics promoting afforestation are likely to slow down global warming, but such projects would
offer only little to no climate benefits when implemented in temperate regions and would be counterproductive, from a climate-perspective, at higher
latitudes. The linear sum of the area-weighted global-mean temperature change over all of the latitude-band experiments is −0.1 K in the year 2100. This
value is close to the corresponding −0.3 K temperature change of the Global deforestation simulation, suggesting a near-linear behavior of the large-scale
climate system despite the many nonlinear processes represented by the INCCA model. The linear sum is slightly larger because, in the latitude-band
experiments, our dynamic vegetation model allows the forests to expand in the regions that are not deforested (23, 26), and forests have lower albedo and
absorb more solar radiation than grasses. The presence of trees in the latitude-band deforestation experiments and the consequent higher CO2 fertilization
causes the linear sum of CO2 changes from the Tropical, Temperate, and Boreal experiments to be lower than that of the Global case by 67 ppmv in year
2100. Because the linear sum of the temperature response from latitude-band experiments is approximately equal to that of the Global case (Fig. 1), we
focus our analysis on our global-scale deforestation simulation for brevity. The removal of forests in the Global case results in an atmospheric CO2
concentration at year 2100 that is 381 ppmv greater than in the Standard simulation (1,113 vs. 732 ppmv; Fig. 1). In the Standard A2 scenario, 1,790 PgC
carbon is emitted to the atmosphere over the 21st century (Fig. 2). By year 2100, the terrestrial biosphere in the Global deforestation experiment has 972 Pg
less carbon than in the Standard case. Approximately 82% (799 PgC) of this carbon resides in the atmosphere, with the oceans taking up the remaining 18%
(173 PgC). The ocean uptake increases in the Global case (444 vs. 271 PgC in Standard) because the higher atmospheric CO2 concentration drives an
increased flux of carbon into the oceans.
Deforestation causes net global cooling
Bala et al. 7 (G. Bala, K. Caldeira, M. Wickett, T. J. Phillips, D. B. Lobell, C. Delire, and A. Mirin, “Combined climate and carbon-cycle
effects of large-scale deforestation” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1871823)
The prevention of deforestation and promotion of afforestation have often been cited as strategies to
slow global warming. Deforestation releases CO2 to the atmosphere, which exerts a warming influence on Earth's climate.
However, biophysical effects of deforestation, which include changes in land surface albedo, evapotranspiration, and cloud
cover also affect climate. Here we present results from several large-scale deforestation experiments performed
with a three-dimensional coupled global carbon-cycle and climate model. These simulations were performed by using a fully three-
dimensional model representing physical and biogeochemical interactions among land, atmosphere, and ocean. We find that global-
scale deforestation has a net cooling influence on Earth's climate, because the warming carbon-cycle
effects of deforestation are overwhelmed by the net cooling associated with changes in albedo and
evapotranspiration. Latitude-specific deforestation experiments indicate that afforestation projects in the tropics would be clearly
beneficial in mitigating global-scale warming, but would be counterproductive if implemented at high latitudes and would offer only
marginal benefits in temperate regions. Although these results question the efficacy of mid- and high-latitude afforestation projects for
climate mitigation, forests remain environmentally valuable resources for many reasons unrelated to climate.
AT – Deforestation Causes Flooding
New studies prove that deforestation does not cause flooding
Monga Bay News 5 (“Deforestation does not cause flooding says new study FAO/CIFOR news release”
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1012-fao-cifor.html)
Deforestation and logging do not increase the risk of major floods according to a new report from the
UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Center for International Forestry Research
(CIFOR). The study, citing evidence showing that the frequency and extent of major floods has not
changed over the last century despite significant reductions in forest cover, challenges the conventional
belief that forest loss causes floods. Instead, FAO and CIFOR say that deforestation does have a role in small floods and
topsoil erosion by eliminating the buffering and soil anchoring effects of forests. Further, the report accuses Asian governments of using
deforestation as an excuse to deflect criticism over their poor handling of human settlement in areas unsuitable for habitation.
Deforestation does not cause flooding
CIFOR 5 (Center for International Forestry Research Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations “Forests and floods:
Drowning in fiction or thriving on facts?” RAP Publication 2005/03 Forest Perspectives,
http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/ae929e/ae929e04.htm#bm04)
It is commonly believed that forests are necessary to regulate stream flow and reduce runoff, and to some extent this is true. But, in
reality, forests tend to be rather extravagant users of water, which is contradictory to earlier thinking (FAO 2003). Considerable
quantities of rainfall (up to 35 per cent) are commonly intercepted by the canopies of tropical forests and evaporated back into the
atmosphere without contributing to soil water reserves. Much of the water that does soak into the soil is used by the trees themselves.
This should put to rest the belief that extensive reforestation or afforestation will increase the low flows in the dry season (Hamilton and
Pearce 1987). Therefore, replacing forest cover with other land uses almost always results in increased runoff and stream flow. Runoff
and stream-flow patterns will gradually return to original levels if an area is left to revert back to forest. Converting forest to grasslands,
however, will normally result in a permanent increase in total water runoff. Contrary to popular belief, forests have only a
limited influence on major downstream flooding, especially large-scale events. It is correct that on a local scale
forests and forest soils are capable of reducing runoff, generally as the result of enhanced infiltration and storage capacities. But this
holds true only for small-scale rainfall events, which are not responsible for severe flooding in downstream areas. During a major
rainfall event (like those that result in massive flooding), especially after prolonged periods of preceding rainfall, the forest soil
becomes saturated and water no longer filters into the soil but instead runs off along the soil surface.
Studies in America (Hewlett and Helvey 1970), and South Africa (Hewlett and Bosch 1984) were amongst some of the first
to question the importance of the link between forest conversion and flooding. Studies in the Himalayas
indicate that the increase in infiltration capacity of forested lands over non-forested lands is
insufficient to influence major downstream flooding events (Gilmour et al. 1987; Hamilton 1987). Instead, the main
factors influencing major flooding given a large rainfall event, are: (i) the geomorphology of the area; and (ii) preceding rainfall
(Bruijnzeel 1990, 2004; Calder 2000; Hamilton with King 1983; Kattelmann 1987).
No evidence for deforestation causing flooding
CIFOR 4 Center for International Forestry Research Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “The great flood myth”
http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/Publications/Corporate/NewsOnline/NewsOnline36/flood.htm?WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished
"Haiti's deforestation allows flood water to run unchecked," declared USA Today. Haiti's prime minister pointed the finger at poor
farmers for cutting down trees for fuel and to make charcoal. The Associated Press ran touching interviews with the elders of the flood-
ravaged Haitian town of Mapou about how they had been forced to fell trees to cook their food even though they knew it would
eventually bring about their own destruction. France's foreign minister promised aid to reforest the denuded hillsides. It was a
predictable response. Just about every time there is a major flood anywhere in the world, small farmers and loggers are held to account.
Floods in Bangladesh are blamed on forest clearing in the Himalayas. In the late 1990s, loggers took the rap for the thousands who died,
and the billions of dollars of damage done, during Hurricane Mitch in Central America, and for the floods along China's Yangtze river.
Indeed, the idea that loggers and small farmers help cause devastating floods is so ingrained inmost
people's minds that few would think to question it. But the idea is deeply flawed. There is not a shred
of scientific evidence to suggest that logging or deforestation play significant roles in massive floods.
And the myth is doing great damage to farmers who need forests to survive.
AT Deforestation - Exaggerated
There is little scientific information about the extent of deforestation
Rothbard and Rucker 97 (David Rothbard and Craig Rucker, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, “The rainforest issue:
Myths and facts” CFACT Briefing Paper #102. http://www.cfact.org/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=5&idarticle=214)
Why these claims are wrong: While some advocates like to make grand, sweeping statements about rainforest
loss and put in big numbers that make it sound catastrophic, Roger Sedjo and Marion Clawson, writing for
Resources for the Future, dug into the available evidence and said, "Information about the tropical moist forests is
relatively scant. What information we do have comes from anecdotal evidence -- provided by isolated
investigations at single times and places -- than from systematic studies conducted over large areas and
lengths of time... A hard look at the available data supports the view that some regions are
experiencing rapid deforestation. However, the view that this is a pervasive phenomenon on a global
level is questionable." (Rational Readings, Julian Simon, p. 745) So what does available evidence show? And where do
environmentalists begin to get their numbers? Well U.S. News and World Report (12/13/93) explains that while the figure of 40 million
acres per year "has taken on a life of its own," it is being "cited and recited without reference to its origins. Yet almost half the estimated
total comes from a very rough estimate made by a Brazilian scientist who used sensors on a U.S. weather satellite to count the number of
fires burning in the Amazon at one time in 1988 [at the height of government-subsidized deforestation]. He estimated the size of each,
[guessing at the number of acres being cleared by each fire then assumed that 40 percent would never return to their forested condition,
and finally doubled this number to arrive at an estimated guess for global deforestation.] The resulting number was into the widely cited
report by the World Resources Institute...that helped fuel the alarm over vanishing tropical forests; [and] was cited by Gore and other
administration officials last spring in announcing support for the Biodiversity Treaty.
AT Deforestation – No Biodiversity Impact
Biodiversity claims are exaggerated, there is no risk of extinction from deforestation
Rothbard and Rucker 97 (David Rothbard and Craig Rucker, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, “The rainforest issue:
Myths and facts” CFACT Briefing Paper #102. http://www.cfact.org/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=5&idarticle=214)
Another important fact, according to Sedjo and Clawson, relates to a study done by the Food and Agriculture Organization and U.N.
Environmental Programme by J.P. Lanly. Lanly is Forest Coordinator for the UNEP/FAO Tropical Resources Assessment Project and his
study "indicates that [of the roughly 7 million acres worldwide per year] the undisturbed or "virgin"
broadleaved closed forests have a far lower rate of deforestation than the total, being only 0.27 percent
annually as compared with 2.06 percent annually for logged over secondary forest. This figure indicates that
deforestation pressure on the more pristine and generally more genetically diverse tropical forests is quite low."
Further, "these findings are in sharp contrast to the conventional view that the tropical forests are
`disappearing at an alarming rate' and suggest that concerns over the imminent loss of some of the
most important residences of the world's diverse genetic base, based on rates of tropical deforestation,
are probably grossly exaggerated." (Simon, Rational Readings, p.746) Sedjo and Clawson also said "While the local effects
of rapid deforestation may be severe, the evidence does not support the view that either the world or the tropics are experiencing rapid
aggregate deforestation. Furthermore, the evidence shows that current rates of deforestation are quite
modest in much of the world's virgin tropical forests, for example those of the Amazon; and therefore
they are probably in little danger of wholesale destruction in the foreseeable future." (Eco-Sanity, p.90)
Sandra Brown, professor of forestry at U. of Illinois and Ariel Lugo, project leader at the U.S. Forest Service's Institute of Tropical
Forestry in Puerto Rico also studied available data and "concluded the `dangerous' misinterpretation and exaggeration of the rate of
deforestation has become common." As for the amount of deforestation in relation to total forest area, Thomas Lovejoy, then of the
World Wildlife Fund, offered a low projection of 50% deforestation between 1980 and 2000 in Latin America and a high of 67%. The
source for this was a set of satellite photos taken in 1978 and reported in the Washington Post to show that "as much as one-tenth of the
Brazilian Amazon has been razed." But according to Fulbright scholar and ecologist Robert Buschbacher
working in Brazil, the Landsat photos "concluded that 1.55 percent of the Brazilian portion of the Amazon has
been deforested." "On the basis of this and other evidence, Buschbacher says, `Because of a relatively
low percentage of forest clearing and the remarkable capacity of the forest to recover its structure...the
threat of turning the Amazon into a wasteland is exaggerated.'
AT Deforestation – Nuclear War = Deforestation

Nuclear war produces firestorms that destroy forests
Jays Net News 6 (NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON" Nuclear & Biological Weapons. http://www.jaysnet.com/666nuke.html)
In a thermonuclear bomb, the explosive process begins with the detonation of what is called the primary stage. This consists of a
relatively small quantity of conventional explosives, the detonation of which brings together enough fissionable uranium to create a fission chain
reaction, which in turn produces another explosion and a temperature of several million degrees. The force and heat of this
explosion are reflected back by a surrounding container of uranium and are channeled toward the secondary stage, made up of tritium or other
fusion fuel. The tremendous heat initiates fusion, and the resulting explosion of the secondary stage blows the uranium container apart and causes
it too to fission, thus contributing to the explosion and producing fallout (the deposition of radioactive materials from the atmosphere) in the
process. (A neutron bomb is a thermonuclear device in which the uranium container is absent, thus producing much less blast but a lethal
"enhanced radiation" of neutrons.) The entire series of explosions in a thermonuclear bomb takes a fraction of a
second to occur.A thermonuclear explosion produces blast, light, heat, and varying amounts of fallout. The
concussive force of the blast itself takes the form of a shock wave that radiates from the point of the explosion at supersonic speeds and that can
completely destroy any building within a radius of several miles. The intense white light of the explosion can cause permanent blindness to
people gazing at it from a distance of dozens of miles. The explosion's intense light and heat set wood and other
combustible materials afire at a range of many miles, creating huge fires that may coalesce into a firestorm.
The radioactive fallout contaminates air, water, and soil and may continue years after the explosion; its distribution is virtually
worldwide.Thermonuclear bombs can be hundreds or even thousands of times more powerful than atomic bombs. The explosive yield of atomic
bombs is measured in kilotons, each unit of which equals the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT. The explosive power of hydrogen bombs, by
contrast, is frequently expressed in megatons, each unit of which equals the explosive force of 1,000,000 tons of TNT. Hydrogen bombs of more
than 50 megatons have been detonated, but the explosive power of the weapons mounted on strategic missiles usually ranges from 100 kilotons to
1.5 megatons. Thermonuclear bombs can be made small enough (a few feet long) to fit in the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles; these
missiles can travel almost halfway across the globe in 20 or 25 minutes and have computerized guidance systems so accurate that they can land
within a few hundred yards of a designated target.Edward Teller and other American scientists developed the first hydrogen bomb, which was
tested at Enewetak atoll on Nov. 1, 1952. The U.S.S.R. first tested a hydrogen bomb on Aug. 12, 1953, followed by the United Kingdom in May
1957, China (1967), and France (1968). During the late 1980s there were some 40,000 thermonuclear

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Arizona Debate Institute 2008 1

Holbrook Environment Toolbox

Subsidies = Env. Damage

Subsidies = Env. Protection

Species – OW Other Env. Harms

Washington Post 8 (Joby, Warwick, staff writer 7/1/08)

Species – Each Species Key

CNN 3 (8/21/03 Strieker, Gary http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html)

Artificial extinction of one species guarantees extinction of exponentially more species

MSNBC 4 (9/4/04 “Study sees far deeper species extinction http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:qk-

Species – Each Species Key

Hance 8 (Jeremy, staff writer for “Mongabay”4/29/08 http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:aeWHIJUA9E4J:news.mongabay.com/2008/0429-

Species - Keystone Species Critical

Keystone species are vital to ecosystem viability

Species – Invisible Threshold

Earth’s tree news 7 (Livejournal, 206 edition

Species – AT: Non-Unique – Species Down

ABC 7 (American bird conservatory “The alliance for zero extinction”

Species – Hot spots Key

Sustaining hotspot ecosystems is critical to halt planetary destruction

Environmental Literacy Council 8 (“Hotspots of Biodiversity,

Businessworld 98 (August 18,, p. 24)

Species – Intrinsic value

Earth’s tree news 7 (Livejournal, 206 edition

AT Species – Non-Unique - ↓ Now

30% of all species became extinct in the last 35 years.

CBC 8 (5/16/08 Canadian Broadcasting company http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/16/species-decline.html)

One species goes extinct every twenty minutes

Science Daily 2 (1/10/02

AT Species – AT: Invisible Threshold/Each Species

Biological history disproves that each species is key to survival

AT Species – AT: Keystone Species

Niche theory flawed

Predictions of species destruction are wrong-six reasons

AT Species – No Impact - Geographic Diversity/Migration

Geographically peripheral species check

Natural and assisted migration solve species extinction

AT Species – No Impact - Tech Solves/Resilience

Species are too resilient for the impacts to occur

AT Species –AT: biggest wave of extinctions

AT Species – AT: Intrinsic worth

AT Species – Turn: Speciation

AT Species –Nuclear War = Species Extinction

Wade 90 (Nichola,s, The New York Times

Biodiversity Hotspots Key

Biodiversity Loss – Extinction

Biodiversity outweighs other impacts

Biodiversity Loss – Extinction Impact

Saving all biodiversity is necessary to prevent a massive planetary extinction, It is also

Biodiversity – Extinction Impact

Biodiversity – Ethical Obligation

AT Biodiversity – No Ecological Collapse Impact

Soil Erosion – Kills Species

Examples of erosion associated with new construction

Soil Erosion Hurt fish by destroying their habitat.

Soil Erosion hurts the duck population

Soil Erosion = Global Warming

Soil Erosion helps prevent Global warming

Soil Erosion – ↓ Water Supply

Soil Erosion – ↓ Food Crops

Soil erosion leads to low crop yields

Soil Erosion – ↓ Food Crops

Soil Erosion - ↓ Economy

Soil Erosion – Impact Outweighs