Can We Defy Natures End?
From Conservation International
September 21, 2001
WASHINGTON DC — September 21, 2001 (Washington, D.C.) - An international team of leading conservationists calculate that protecting enough biological diversity to sustain a healthy planet will cost some $30 billion, and maintain that the money and measures to do so are attainable. Their findings appear in, "Can We Defy Nature’s End?," an article published in today’s Science Magazine.
The article summarizes the ‘practical blueprint’ created at the Defying Nature’s End conference, which focused on developing a highly focused, results-oriented approach to biodiversity conservation. The conference was convened in August, 2000 at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) by the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science (CABS) at Conservation International and co-chaired by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson. Based on the findings of that conference, today’s Science Magazine article offers specific recommendations for governments, industry and individuals to preserve global biodiversity.
"The goals we set at the Defying Nature’s End conference are ambitious, but we have no doubt they are attainable," says Conservation International President Russell A. Mittermeier, a co-author of the article. "If we fail, the scenario is an enormous biodiversity loss in the hotspots, which is simply not an option. When biodiversity goes, it’s gone forever, and the unraveling of nature means an impoverished future for us all. Although ambitious, the estimated $30 billion price tag is substantially less than the $40 billion tax refund mailed to American households earlier this summer.
"The article states that $25 billion is required to fund the protection of the world’s 25 "biodiversity hotspots," which contain high concentrations of species found nowhere else and which are disproportionately vulnerable to extinction. The 25 hotspots represent just 1.4 percent of the world’s landmass, but contain a staggering 60 percent of terrestrial species diversity. The remaining $5 billion would help protect the tropical wilderness forests and key marine reserves.
"This is the first time that a plan for addressing the most important crisis for biodiversity has been articulated from both a scientific and practical application point of view," says CABS Executive Director Gustavo Fonseca, another co-author. "We know not only that these suggestions are viable, but we know that they are affordable."
One suggestion, for example, calls for a targeted assault on perverse economic subsidies, governmental policies that degrade the environment. Another is to compete with loggers, using "conservation concessions" as a free-market mechanism to ensure conservation success.
The initial blueprint to carry out the recommendations of the Defy Nature’s End Conference will be formally announced on October 19 in Portland, Oregon at the annual meeting of the Society for Environmental Journalists.
For more information, contact:
Brad Phillips
Media Relations Manager
Conservation International
202-912-1532
b.phillips@conservation.org
Web site: http://www.conservation.org