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 rather than their own, a pattern that is reinforced by domestic restrictions on the amounts that can be cut in domestic forests. {{c|

IV. ECONOMIC VALUES AT STAKE
}} 30. Species conservation is not only justified in economic terms. Aesthetic, ethical, cultural, and scientific considerations provide ample grounds for conservation. For those who demand an accounting, the economic values inherent in the genetic materials of species are alone enough to justify species preservation.

31. Today, industrialized nations record far Greater financial benefits from wild species than do developing countries, though unrecorded benefits to people living in the tropical countryside can be considerable. But the industrial countries have the scientific and industrial capacity to convert the wild material for industrial and medical use. And they also trade a higher proportion of their agricultural produce than do developing nations. Northern crop breeders are increasingly dependent on genetic materials from wild relatives of maize and wheat, two crops that play leading roles in the international grain trade. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that contributions from plant Genetic material lead to increases in productivity that average around 1 per cent annually, with a farm-gate value of well over $1 billion (1980 dollars).

32. The U.S, maize crop suffered a severe setback in 1970, when a leaf fungus blighted croplands, causing losses to farmers worth more than $2 billion. Then fungus-resistant genetic material was found in genetic stocks that had originated in Mexico. More recently, a primitive species of maize was discovered in a montane forest of south-central Mexico This wild plant is /…