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Halting the assault on biodiversity will not be easy, but there are many actions that governments can take. First, they should develop and support local scientific institutions that train professionals in conservation techniques. More money should flow into educational programs that alert people to the irreversible consequences of a loss of genetic diversity. An international, environmental version of the Peace Corps could spread conservation expertise to the Third World.
Throughout the developing nations there are encouraging stirrings of local environmental activity. In Malaysia blowgun-armed Penan tribesmen have joined forces with environmentalists in an effort to stop rampant logging. And in Brazil, which has some 500 conservation organizations, environmentalist Jose Pedro de Oliveira Costa organized a coalition of legislators, conservationists, industrialists and media barons to stir public support to preserve Brazil's remaining Atlantic forests. "The threats to the forests remain," said Costa, "but now at least there is a network in place to scream when a threat arises."
But environmental protection must make economic sense, and development must go hand in hand with preservation. Development should be sustainable, meaning that it should use up resources no faster than they can be regenerated by nature. Governments and private firms should organize projects to show that forests can be used without being obliterated. If trees are cut selectively, forests can yield profits and survive to produce more money in the future. Another way to harvest cash from forests and other habitats is to set up tours and safaris to attract animal lovers and photography buffs. Long a moneymaker in Africa and the Galapagos Islands, this "ecotourism" is spreading to such places as Costa Rica.
For sustainable development to work, observed Paulo Nogueira-Neto, environmental adviser to the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, governments will have to devise comprehensive national zoning plans so that their countries can achieve the right mix of preservation and economic growth. Local residents can be encouraged to earn a livelihood in the more robust areas, while habitats that are fragile can be protected. Sustainable development can proceed, noted Kenneth Piddington, director of the environmental department of the World Bank, "right up to a park's boundary."
Financial as well as political leverage can be used in the cause of preservation. Governments should force local lending institutions to review the environmental consequences of proposed loans. No bank, for example, should be allowed to lend a company money to set up a cattle ranch if the operation would destroy too large a section of an endangered forest.
Finally, the unfortunate reality is that many habitats are not going to be , saved. To prevent the genetic legacy of those areas from being extinguished, as many species as possible should be preserved in zoos, botanical gardens and other "gene banks." There, scientists can study a small percentage of threatened organisms and have the options of later returning them to the wild or transplanting some of their genes into other species.