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Economic activity depends on a flourishing biodiversity and intact environment through the provision of ecosystem services. The depletion of these services poses physical risks for the financial sector. This paper attempts to measure the potential exposure of the banking systems in 20 emerging markets to nature loss through their lending portfolio. The results show that banks in emerging markets allocate around half of their credit portfolio to firms whose business processes are highly or very highly dependent on one or more ecosystem services. The results also provide initial and preliminary evidence that points to a negative correlation between country income level and dependency on ecosystem services. Accounting for indirect dependencies on ecosystem services via supply chains and trade could change this observed relationship, however. Furthermore, the highest dependencies on ecosystem services across countries tend to be on climate regulation and flood and storm protection, indicating the interconnectedness of climate change and nature loss.

Biodiversity. --- Finance.

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Brazil is poised to become a significant player in the field of biotechnology, internationally, by taking advantage of circumstances not available in other countries, particularly its native biodiversity. This e-book presents a concise overview of the biotechnology industry in Brazil.

Biodiversity. --- Biotechnology. --- Evolution.

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"Conservation of high-biodiversity tropical forests is sometimes justified on the basis of assumed hydrological benefits - in particular, the reduction of flooding hazards for downstream floodplain populations. However, the "far-field" link between deforestation and distant flooding has been difficult to demonstrate empirically. This simulation study assesses the relationship between forest cover and hydrology for all river basins intersecting the world's tropical forest biomes. The study develops a consistent set of pan-tropical land cover maps gridded at one-half degree latitude and longitude. It integrates these data with existing global biogeophysical data. The study applies the Water Balance Model - a coarse-scale process-based hydrological model - to assess the impact of land cover changes on runoff. It quantifies the impacts of forest conversion on biodiversity and hydrology for two scenarios - historical forest conversion and the potential future conversion of the most threatened remaining tropical forests. A worst-case scenario of complete conversion of the most threatened of the remaining forested areas would mean the loss of another three million km2 of tropical forests. Increased annual yield from the conversion of threatened tropical forests would be less than 5 percent of contemporary yield in aggregate. However, about 100 million people - 80 million of them in floodplains - would experience increases of more than 25 percent in annual water flows. This might be associated with commensurate increases in peak flows, though further analysis would be necessary to gauge the impact on flooding. The study highlights basins in Southeast Asia, southern China, and Latin America that warrant further study. "--World Bank web site.

Biodiversity --- Rain forests

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Biodiversity --- Freshwater fishes --- Freshwater biology --- Freshwater biodiversity --- Freshwater ecology --- Variation

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"A "forest-hydrology-poverty nexus" hypothesis asserts that deforestation in poor upland areas simultaneously threatens biodiversity and increases the incidence of flooding, sedimentation, and other damaging hydrological processes. Nelson and Chomitz use rough heuristics to assess the applicability of this hypothesis to Central America. They do so by using a simple rule of thumb to identify watersheds at greater risk of hydrologically significant land use change: these are watersheds where there is a relatively large interface between agriculture and forest, and where this interface is on a steep slope. The authors compare the location of these watersheds with spatial maps of poverty and forests (for Guatemala and Honduras) and with maps of population and forests (for Central America at large). The analysis is performed for watersheds defined at different scales. The authors find plausible evidence for a forest-biodiversity-poverty connection in Guatemala, and to a lesser extent in Honduras. In the rest of Central America, there are relatively few areas where forest meets agriculture on steep slopes--either the forest or the slopes are lacking. And the ratio of these forest/agriculture/hillside interfaces to watershed area declines markedly as larger-scale watersheds are considered. This directs attention to relatively small watersheds for further investigation of the "nexus." This paper--a product of the Infrastructure and Environment Team, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the economics of conservation"--World Bank web site.

Biodiversity conservation --- Forest conservation --- Watersheds