Читать книгу Fundamentals of Conservation Biology - Malcolm L. Hunter Jr. - Страница 58

Plastics, metals, glass, and concrete may constitute the bulk of materials people use today, but more traditional materials such as wood, cotton, thatch, sisal, wool, silk, leather, fur, and others remain very important to us. In industrialized nations natural materials often command a premium price because people prefer to walk on hardwood floors rather than linoleum and to sit on leather upholstery rather than plastic. In places that are far from industrial centers, or where a subsistence economy prevails over a cash economy, many people still rely mainly on natural materials (Fig. 3.7).

Figure 3.7 Natural building materials remain very important, especially in rural areas where they can be obtained locally, such as these houses in India with roofs made of thatch from local grasses.

(Roop_Dey/Shutterstock)

A conservation biology perspective on the use of organisms for materials parallels our earlier discussion about using organisms for food – wild relatives of domestic populations, wild species that might be domesticated, and direct use of wild species. One issue stands out: the overexploitation of wild populations for materials seems particularly unacceptable when they are used to produce nonessential items, especially status symbols for wealthy people such as luxurious fur coats, ivory knickknacks, elephant feet for trash baskets, snakeskin boots, rhino‐horn dagger handles, or Brazilian rosewood guitars.