The world has no hope of protecting species from extinction by fencing off 鈥渂iodiversity hot spots鈥�, warns a new report. It says these areas of high biodiversity are home to up to a billion of the world鈥檚 poorest people, who desperately need the land for farming.
鈥淭here is no hope of our conserving biodiversity that way,鈥� says Jeff McNeely, chief scientist at the Swiss-based World Conservation Union and a co-author of the report.
鈥淗ot spots are where people live, too. We cannot separate people and wildlife. We have to find a productive balance with nature.鈥�
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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.
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 鈥渨ould go far to stem the mass extinction of species鈥�, he reported in the journal Nature last year (快猫短视频, 26 February 2000, p 12).
The areas Myers pinpoints contain half the world鈥檚 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鈥檚 population, live in these 25 hot spots. And these people are often among the most impoverished in their respective countries.
鈥淓ndangered species, essential farmlands and desperately poor humans often occupy the same ground,鈥� says the report. 鈥淚t is unrealistic to expect isolated protected areas to carry the full responsibility for conserving wild biodiversity.鈥�
The report calls for a new approach to protecting biodiversity which combines conservation and farming efforts. Dubbed 鈥渆co-agriculture鈥�, 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.
鈥淢ost research is led by the private sector, which wants to make money by concentrating on the most productive land,鈥� says McNeely. 鈥淪o they never find ways of improving the lot of poor subsistence farmers who have the biggest impact on biodiversity.鈥�
Instead, McNeely calls for more research into subsistence farming. He admits it won鈥檛 make much money, but it 鈥渨ill provide food security for the poor and help protect biodiversity鈥�. If supported by sound science and policy, he says, 鈥渉umans and wild species can share the same ground鈥�.