Each summer the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) organizes and hosts a series of seminars. This year MSU has joined us as cosponsor. These programs attract some of the nation's most respected and influential opinion leaders and decision makers. Lecturers include professors from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Berkeley. MSU speakers have earned the respect of these top-tier researchers.

Our June program was Biotechnology and Bioprospecting in Greater Yellowstone. Speakers included University of Utah geneticist Ray Gesteland; John Varley, chief scientist at Yellowstone Park; David Sands of MSU's Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology; Tim McDermott, co-director of MSU's Thermal Biology Institute; Pat Shea, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior; the Bozeman Daily Chronicle's Scott McMillion; and James Fallows, a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Professors of law, economics, journalism, education, history, and biotechnology as well as environmentalists and entrepreneurs participated.

Professor McDermott described the exotic organisms thriving in Yellowstone's hot pools. Their conditions were previously considered uninhabitable: boiling, acidic, sulfurous, and otherwise toxic. Enzymes from these "extremophiles" have practical applications as diverse as nontoxic road deicing, paint removal, mine reclamation, a technique that completely revolutionized organ transplants, and CO2 mitigation at coal-fired power plants.

Yellowstone's John Varley argued that nature is a grand storehouse of useful products for humans, from which we have been "bioprospecting" for millennia. Developing and maintaining this storehouse in a responsible, environmentally sound manner is a delicate balancing act.

If researchers lack property rights in the potential fruits of their work, little research will be done. However, in the case of America's first national park, the question of the American people's stake in profits earned on organisms found there is important. For example, Pat Shea suggested that 20 percent of revenues from biota taken from Yellowstone be dedicated to public education.

Scott McMillion pointed out that Yellowstone is a sacred icon. Discussing the Park in terms of cash flow and return on investment makes some people squirm. Indeed, many environmentalists believe any kind of "commercialization" of the national parks is sacrilege. To these Greens, economic arguments are as effective as arguing for the nutritional value of communion.

Yet there are many competing, conflicting values. This forces tradeoffs. For example, if you value both safety and environmental quality, should you drive a large, safe, gas-guzzling SUV or a small, dangerous, fuel-efficient compact? It is irresponsible to pretend the environment trumps all other concerns and hence avoid analysis.

On the topic of biotechnology, Professor Gesteland described the "unity of life on earth in an informational sense and a functional sense." That is, genes performing a particular function in various species may be interchanged. As MSU's Professor Sands put it, "All organisms are reading the same language." Thus, genetically modifying plants is a much more precise form of manipulation than traditional hybridization. It also allows us to aim our agriculture at people's needs. We can modify plants to improve nutrition and treat disease -- "prescription foods" -- as well as to be pest-resistant, drought-tolerant, etc. As a safeguard, genetically enhanced plants can be made sterile, with a "marker" identifying their creator.

As this was a conference on environmental entrepreneurship, FREE's John Baden defined three kinds of entrepreneurs: Traditional entrepreneurs look for new ways to combine inputs to increase output and make money, e.g. Henry Ford. Social (including environmental) entrepreneurs devise novel institutional arrangements that induce people to act in the public's interest, e.g. Ducks Unlimited. They mobilize resources to benefit the public good. Political entrepreneurs mobilize people and ideas, and change institutions, to improve information and increase value, e.g. America's Founding Fathers.

A compelling example of international environmental entrepreneurship is organizations that engage in "debt-for-nature" swaps. Under this arrangement

an environmental group assumes a developing country's debt, often at 20 cents to the dollar. In return, it contracts with local conservation groups to preserve the country's natural resources.

Our national parks should not be locked away like exhibits in a museum, available only for viewing. If they hold benefits for humanity beyond recreation, aesthetics, and the warm glow of simply knowing they're there, these should be shared. Permitting the private sector to explore and develop these resources, while maintaining the parks' integrity, assures the greatest good for the greatest number.