biodiversity also provides the poor with a form of costeffective and readily accessible insurance against risk particularly food security risks health risks and environmental hazards vira and kontoleon roe and mapendembe conversely the loss of biodiversity also imposes huge costs on the economies of developing countries damages due to crime related to natural resources and the environment in developing countries are estimated to be more than billion united states dollars usd a year world bank agriculture supports more than half of the world s population including billion people living on smallscale farming in developing countries