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germplasm year by year, the nations of Europe and North America would quickly find their agricultural output declining.
50. The Earth's endowment of species and natural ecosystems will soon be seen as assets to be conserved and managed for the benefit of all humanity. This will necessarily add the challenge of species conservation to the international political agenda.
51. At the heart' of the issue lies the fact that there is often a conflict between the shot-term economic interest of the individual nations and the long-term interest of sustainable development and potential economic gains of the world community at large. A major thrust in actions to conserve genetic diversity must therefore be directed at making it more economically attractive both in the short term and in the longer perspective to protect wild species and their ecosystems. Developing countries must be ensured an equitable share of the economic profit from the use of genes for commercial purposes.
1. Some Current Initiatives
52. A number of international measures are already being tried. But they are limited in scope, only partially successful, and reactive in nature. UNESCO operates a clearing-house for information on natural areas and genetic resources. Its World Heritage Fund supports the management of a handful of exceptional ecosystems around the world, but all these activities receive small budgets. UNESCO has sought to establish a global system of Biosphere Reserves representing the Earth's 200 'biotic provinces' and barbouting sample communities of species. But only one-third of the needed reserves have been established, even though instituting and operating the rest would cost only about $150 million a year.[1]
53. UN agencies such as FAO and UNEP run programmes concerned with threatened species, genetic resources, and outstanding ecosystems. But their combined activities are tiny in the face of the large needs. Among national agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development leads the field in recognizing the value of species conservation. Legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in 1986 will make available $2.5 million a year for this purpose.[2] Again, this should be considered an important gesture compared with what has been done to date by bilateral agencies, but trifling compared with the needs and opportunities.
54. IUCN, working in close collaboration with UNEP, WWF, the World Bank, and various international technical assistance agencies, has established a 'Conservation Monitoring Centre', to provide data on species and ecosystems for any part of the world quickly and easily. This service, which is available to all, can help ensure that development projects are designed with full information available about the species and ecosystems that might be affected. Technical assistance is also available for nations, sectors, and organizations interested in establishing local data bases for their own applications.
