Biotechnology and biodiversity conservation: are they conflicting?

Biodiversity conservation is the protection, restoration and sustainable management of wildlife and natural resources such as forests, water and the biological diversity within it. Biotechnology is a set of techniques by which human beings modify living things or use them as tools. In its modern form, biotechnology uses molecular biology techniques to understand and manipulate the basic building blocks of living things. Biotechnology is the art of utilizing living organisms and their products for the production of food, drink, medicine or for other benefits to the human being, or other animal species. Biotechnology plays an immense role in biodiversity conservation such as vegetative multiplication of many species, allows the production of large numbers of plants from small pieces of the stock plant in relatively short period of time and in some cases for recovery of virus-free plants. Biotechnology also has potential application in production of somatic hybrids, organelle and cytoplasm transfer, genetic transformation and germplasm storage through freeze-preservation (Cryopreservation). Apart from its uses there are also some concerns or worries with modern biotechnologies such as the Terminator technology and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) which are developed through genetic engineering, which may cause "Genetic pollution" and "Genetic contamination" and they may have social consequences which needs economic, ethical and environmental considerations. Even though, biotechnology has so many advantages and different technologies which can complement conservation of biodiversity; as that of other new technologies the introduction and spread of new biotechnologies generally have social consequences with winners and losers. For biotechnology, this has led to intense public debate across many different aspects such as ethical, economic, legal and environmental issues. Modern biotechnologies such as terminator technology and GMO can have a negative effect on biodiversity. Genetic pollution" and "genetic contamination" are among the environmental concerns which need to be cleared or ascertained before releasing new technologies which can pollute the biodiversity and the natural/ wild genetic pool and may cause irreversible damage. Since many countries have banned the use of technologies such as GMO and terminator technology; for the country like Ethiopia, it is important to learn from others, rather than endangering or risking the genetic resources from genetic pollution and genetic contamination which may occur. On the other hand, the use of safe and known technologies should be encouraged and used to augment the biodiversity conservation efforts and other development efforts of the country.