Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability 1

■ Make conservation profitable. This involves findingways to raise the income of people who live in or nearnature reserves so they can become partners in theirprotection and sustainable use. It also requires providingfinancial help from private and governmentsources to governments that protect their forests andother nature reserves.■ Initiate ecological restoration products worldwide toheal some of the damage we have done and increasethe share of the earth’s land and water allotted to therest of nature.According to Wilson, such a conservation strategywould cost about $30 billion per year—an amount thatcould be provided by a tax of one cent per cup of coffee.According to biologist David Suzuhi, “We musttry our best in everything we do not to disrupt the naturalsystems around us because, ultimately, we arecompletely dependent on them. That is what sustainabilityall about.”This strategy for protecting the earth’s preciousbiodiversity will not be implemented without bottomuppolitical pressure on elected officials from individualcitizens and groups. It will also require cooperationamong key people in government, the private sector,science, and engineering using adaptive management(Figure 11-23). Figure 11-25 lists some ways you canhelp sustain the earth’s terrestrial biodiversity.We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belongingto us. When we see land as a community to which we belong,we may begin to use it with love and respect.ALDO LEOPOLDWhat Can You Do?Sustaining Terrestrial Biodiversity• Plant trees and take care of them.• Recycle paper and buy recycled paper products.• Buy wood and wood products made from treesthat have been grown sustainably.• Help rehabilitate or restore a degraded area offorest or grassland near your home.• When building a home, save all the trees and asmuch natural vegetation and soil as possible.• Landscape your yard with a diversity of plantsnatural to the area instead of having amonoculture lawn.Figure 11-25 What can you do? Ways to help sustain terrestrialbiodiversity.CRITICAL THINKING1. Do you agree or disagree with the program that reintroducedpopulations of the gray wolf in the Yellowstoneecosystem? Explain. Do you favor reintroducing grizzlybears to Yellowstone or other public lands in the westernUnited States? Explain.2. Explain why you agree or disagree with (a) the fourprinciples that biologists and some economists have suggestedfor using public land in the United States (p. 199)and (b) the nine suggestions made by developers and resourceextractors for managing and using U.S. publicland (p. 199).3. Explain why you agree or disagree with each of theproposals for providing more sustainable use of foreststhroughout the world, listed in Figure 11-13, p. 205.4. Should there be a ban on the use of off-road motorizedvehicles and snowmobiles on all public lands?Explain.5. Should the U.S. government (or the government of thecountry where you live) continue providing private companiesthat harvest timber from public lands with subsidiesfor reforestation and for building and maintainingaccess roads? Explain.6. In the early 1990s, Miguel Sanchez, a subsistencefarmer in Costa Rica, was offered $600,000 by a hotel developerfor a piece of land that he and his family hadbeen using sustainably for many years. The land containedan old-growth rain forest and a black sand beachin an area under rapid development. Sanchez refused theoffer. What would you have done if you were a poor subsistencefarmer in Miguel Sanchez’s position? Explainyour decision.7. Should developed countries provide most of themoney to preserve remaining tropical forests in developingcountries? Explain.8. If ecosystems are undergoing constant change, whyshould we (a) establish and protect nature reserves and(b) carry out ecological restoration?9. Congratulations! You are in charge of protecting andsustaining the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. List thethree most important features of your policies for usingand managing (a) forests and (b) parks.PROJECTS1. Obtain a topographic map of the region where youlive and use it to identify local, state, and federallyowned lands in the form of parks, rangeland, forests,and wilderness areas. Identify the government agencyor agencies responsible for managing each of theseareas, and try to evaluate how well these agencies arepreserving the natural resources on this public land onyour behalf.2. What has happened to the biome in which you live duringthe past 50 years? How much, if any, of it remains in its222 CHAPTER 11 Sustaining Terrestrial Biodiversity: Managing and Protecting Ecosystems