Life in the balance: our failure to recognize our connection with the global ecosystem lies behind the biodiversity crisis facing our planet today

But comparing ecosystems and component species to decide what to save and what to let go is truly a tricky proposition. Is one ecosystem more valuable than another because it has more species in it? If so, then tropical systems are by definition more valuable than their higher-latitude counterparts. Are we to sacrifice the tundra because it has far fewer species than a tropical rainforest? Clearly, decisions on preservation must hinge on factors that transcend the presence of this or that particular species--or even the number of species at risk, or their uniqueness, or whatever other criterion we might adopt. If we take the longer view, if we realize that intact ecosystems themselves, and not just their component species, have value, then we shall realize that all ecosystems, all habitats, and all natural places have such value and that as much as possible (and practicable) must be conserved-taking into account, of course, sustainable use and the economic well-being of local human inhabitants.

5. We must strike a balance between human economic needs and the continued healthy existence of ecosystems and species. It is simply unacceptable to tell the head of a starving family in Madagascar not to cut down trees for firewood or not to burn the forest to clear land for more rice cultivation. Such postures are arrogant, simplistic, and doomed. Sustainability refers as much to human life as it does to the use of the local environment. Conservation, in short, is futile unless the economic interests and well-being of local peoples are central considerations.

People may be divorced in a formal, ecological sense from their local ecosystems, but especially in developing countries, they still freely use the fruits of those ecosystems. They kill animals for food and pelts; they cut trees for building and firewood. They have a sense that it is their right to do so--and, of course, in so thinking, they are perfectly correct. If that attitude underlies the ongoing destruction of the environment around them, it also, ironically enough, holds the key to persuading local people the world over to think of themselves as stewards of their environment and to see that the living world around them is more valuable to them alive than dead.

How, then, to convince a young Malagasy man that Madagascar's lemurs must be saved and that the only way to do so is not to cut down the woodlands surrounding his home? We must establish economic enterprises that make it possible not just for isolated individuals but for entire communities to see the value of the living world around them: value not in a traditional sense--as, say, firewood--but in new forms. Demonstrating the advantages of ecotourism, marketing of forest products, and access to the diverse plant genes and natural pharmaceuticals contained within the forest may convince local peoples that retaining the natural world is more profitable than destroying it would be.

6. We must develop a political will and agenda. Conservation is not a new movement. Theodore Roosevelt was a conspicuous part of the effort to save the American bison from extinction and, perhaps more importantly, to create our national parks system. Although some historians argue that this system reflected the desire of railroad magnates to set aside scenic wonders as an incentive for railroad travel in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the sheer act of setting aside vast tracts of land also greatly abetted conservationist goals. At mid-twentieth century, we had the writings of such inspirational conservationists as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson.