from www.newcientist.com People versus nature Fencing off "biodiversity hot spots" will not protect species from extinction, warns a new report The world has no hope of protecting species from extinction by fencing off "biodiversity hot spots", warns a new report. It says these areas of high biodiversity are home to up to a billion of the world's poorest people, who desperately need the land for farming. "There is no hope of our conserving biodiversity that way," says Jeff McNeely, chief scientist at the Swiss-based World Conservation Union and a co-author of the report. "Hot spots are where people live, too. We cannot separate people and wildlife. We have to find a productive balance with nature." The report was launched in London this week with the backing of Future Harvest, an organisation representing 16 international agricultural research centres. The other author of the report is Sara Scherr, a leading agriculture researcher at the University of Maryland in College Park. Deserately poor The hot spots approach is the brainchild of Norman Myers, an independent British ecologist. Preserving just 25 areas around the world which have the highest biodiversity "would go far to stem the mass extinction of species", he reported in the journal Nature last year (New Scientist, 26 February 2000, p 12). The areas Myers pinpoints contain half the world's species, but together cover an area smaller than Greenland. The idea has been formally adopted by Conservation International, a US-based private charity which buys up wilderness round the world. But the report says more than a billion people, one-sixth of the world's population, live in these 25 hot spots. And these people are often among the most impoverished in their respective countries. "Endangered species, essential farmlands and desperately poor humans often occupy the same ground," says the report. "It is unrealistic to expect isolated protected areas to carry the full responsibility for conserving wild biodiversity." Boosting productivity The report calls for a new approach to protecting biodiversity which combines conservation and farming efforts. Dubbed "eco-agriculture", the scheme has already been successful in Costa Rica. Examples include planting windbreaks to connect patches of forest, and growing trees on pasturelands to protect forest birds and shade coffee plantations. In many cases, bringing nature back to the fields has boosted productivity by attracting pollinators, improving soils and providing new crops such as fruit, medicinal plants and fodder. The development of eco-agricultural systems is often discouraged by the way research is funded. "Most research is led by the private sector, which wants to make money by concentrating on the most productive land," says McNeely. "So they never find ways of improving the lot of poor subsistence farmers who have the biggest impact on biodiversity." Instead, McNeely calls for more research into subsistence farming. He admits it won't make much money, but it "will provide food security for the poor and help protect biodiversity". If supported by sound science and policy, he says, "humans and wild species can share the same ground". Correspondence about this story should be directed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mulai langganan: kirim e-mail ke [EMAIL PROTECTED] Stop langganan: kirim e-mail ke [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archive ada di http://www.mail-archive.com/envorum@ypb.or.id
