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 the most primitive known relative of modern maize and was surviving in only three tiny patches covering a mere four hectares in an area threatened with destruction by farmers and loggers. The wild species is a perennial: all other forms of maize are annuals. Its cross-breeding with commercial varieties of maize opens up the prospect that farmers could be spared the annual expense of ploughing and sowing, since the plant would grow again yearly of its own accord. The genetic benefits of this wild plant, discovered when not more than a few thousand last stalks remained, could total several thousand million dollars a year.

33. Wild species likewise contribute to medicine. Half of all prescriptions dispensed have their origins in wild organisms The commercial value of these medicines and drugs in the United States now amounts to some $14 billion a year. Worldwide, and including non-prescription materials plus pharmaceuticals, the estimated commercial value exceeds $40 billion a year.

34. Industry also benefits from wildlife. Wildlife-derived materials contribute gums, oils, resins, dyes, tannins, vegetable fats and waxes, insecticides, and many other compounds. Many wild plants bear oil-rich seeds that can help in the manufacture of fibres, detergents, starch, and general edibles. For instance, the Fevillea genus of rain-forest vines in western Amazonia bear seeds with such a high oil content that a hectare of such vines in an original forest could produce more oil than a hectare of commercial oil palm plantation.

35. A few plant species contain hydrocarbons rather than carbohydrates. Certain of these plants can flourish in areas that have been rendered useless through such activities as strip-mining. Hence land that has been degraded by extraction of hydrocarbons such as coal could be rehabilitated by growing hydrocarbons on the surface. Moreover, unlike an oil well, a 'petroleum plantation' need never run dry.

36. The emerging field of genetic engineering, by which science devises new variations of life forms, does not render wild genes useless. In fact, this new science must be based on existing genetic material and makes such material even more valuable and useful. Extinction, according to Professor Tom Eisner of Cornell University, 'no longer means the simple loss of one volume from the library of nature. It means the loss of a loose-leaf book whose individual pages, were the species to survive, would remain available in perpetuity for selective transfer and improvement of other species. And Professor Winston Brill of the University of Wisconsin has noted: 'We are entering an age in which genetic wealth, especially in tropical areas such as rain forests, until now a relatively inaccessible trust fund, is becoming a currency with high immediate value.

37. Genetic engineering may mean that agriculture's Green Revolution will be superseded by a 'Gene Revolution' This technology raises hopes of eventually harvesting crops from deserts, from seawater, and from other environments that did not /…