Subject biodiversity

Although the experts assessments vary enormously by country, the mean values show that the most important subjects with respect to the environmental impacts of organic farming are landscape, soil, ground and surface water and biodiversity. Climate as well as air and energy uses are, however, assessed to be of only minor importance. Only two experts identified animal health and welfare to be of special importance for organic farming in this context. 

Moreover, the use of edible oils such as rapeseed, soybean and palm oils is the subject of continuous attack from both the media and some political parties, while concerns have been raised also by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [3]. From the environmental point of view, an increasing demand for palm oil is spurring the destruction of Asia s forests, and rapeseed, widely grown in Europe, is said to lower biodiversity. 

Biodiversity may also be fostered when the ecosystem is unstable, like a pond subjected to alternating periods of dryness and wetness, populated by plants giving C, or C4 metabolites, or shifting to this biosynthetic mode according to the availability of COj and the need of saving water (Keeley 1998). 

In any event, forecasts about the extent and timing of global warming are subjected to frequent revisions, in contradiction with one another (Schneider 2001). Also, changes in biodiversity are hardly amenable to a quantitative evaluation because of the large number of fectors involved. These are examined in the following. 

To facilitate collaborations, a document of guidelines for this was published in 1996 as lUPAC Recommendations entitled Preservation and utilization of natural biodiversity in context of the search for economically valuable medicinal biota . Two other documents have been published on the subject a technical report intended to help with drawing up contracts and an article titled Medicinal Chemistry in the Development of Societies . 

The realization is dawning that traditional approaches to conservation are doomed to fail. Nature reserves are — and are likely to remain — too small, too few, too isolated, and too subject to change to sustain more than a tiny fraction of Earth s biodiversity (maybe just 5 % of species) and life-support services to society, over the long run. For conservation to have enduring success, it must become both economically and culturally attractive and common-place in the sea of human activity. ... 

As mentioned in the Preface, the rst new chapter (Chapter 4) deals with Natural Variability of Essential Oil Components. It is based on Prof Dr. Eva Nemeth-Zamborini s excellent plenary lecture at the 44th International Symposium on Essential Oils in Budapest in September 2013. In this treatise Prof Nemeth-Zamborini discusses the reasons why variability of components often occurs in EOs. The in uence of molecular genetics in understanding the background of biodiversity in formation of volatiles is elaborated with examples. The second new chapter (Chapter 18) by, the perfumers Erich Schmidt and Jurgen Wanner, is devoted to the subject Adulteration of Essential Oils, ... 

The important question of biodiversity is considered in an inspiring chapter. The main factor underlying the extinction of plants and animals - overpopulation and its attendant effects - seems to have been skirted. This is, however, a subject that is difficult to address in print without the author appearing to be socially reprehensible. 

The entire biosphere is today subjected to the consequences of human activities and to their combined impacts on the enviromnent and biodiversity. These impacts often translate into modifications of the chemical properties of the enviromnent which are notably observed in the most remote areas of the globe (contamination by organic pollutants persisting in polar regions, acidification and anoxia of deep water of certain oceanic regions, eutrophication and/or soil erosion). Despite this, the concepts and tools to imderstand the impacts of these multiple abiotic constraints at different spatio-temporal scales, on diversified communities and in interactions are missing. 

When applied over the entire hfe cycle of a material, a full analysis of the chemical prodnct can be completed. It is important to note, however, that no analysis can be completely objective, since the valnation phase often comes down to an individual assessment of critical environmental elements. Thns, the valuation phase attempts to compare the impact of loss of biodiversity against emissions of greenhouse gases, a subjective decision. 

The survey of plant transects across broad geographic areas has in the past referred nearly always to the macroscopic, morphological part of the phenome. Unless the submicroscopic, chemical characteristics are considered additionally, we will never learn the lesson biogeography is able to teach on the subject of biodiversity. 

---