Thursday, May 06, 2010

Species diversity plans aren't helping

The news is grim. A global conference in 2002 agreed the loss of species must be stemmed. 2010 was set as the target year. It's not working out. When the the Convention of Biological Diversity meets this October in Japan, the tone is going to be dire. The easiest numbers to understand are those concerning the most visible creatures: 20% of the mammals, 12% of the birds, and 30% of thee world's amphibians are in some category of threatened species.

An idea: maybe it's time for the most critical "hot spots" to be managed as international parks: not by fiat from New York or Zurich, but as Megacommunities which bring together government, business, and nonprofit entities with a shared objective. (See "The Megacommunity Manifesto," at
http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/44.02.Megacommunities )
(Full disclosure: some of the leaders at my day job came up with this concept, but the point is, it works where top-down efforts fail.)

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