"A greening of the human mind must precede the greening of our Earth. A green mind is one that cares, saves, and shares. These are qualities essential for conserving biological diversity now and forever."

Research, training, and information management all help expand the human capacity to conserve genes, species, and ecosystems. But even more important is expanding people's awareness of biodiversity and appreciation of its significance. As the German philosopher Goethe observed, "Every man is given only enough strength to complete those assignments of whose importance he is fully convinced."

Conservation can succeed only if people understand biodiversity's distribution and value, see how it figures into their own lives and aspirations, and know how to manage bioregions to meet human needs without damage. This capacity is woefully inadequate today: resource maangers are not trained to conserve biodiversity; the number of taxonomists specializing in tropical species needs to be quintupled; no country has a complete listing of its species; and for most ecosystems little information exists on indicator and keystone species.

These gaps result from chronic under-investment in human capacity-building, which in turn reflects a lack of appreciation by governments of biodiversity's potential contribution to national dvelopment and human needs. Taxonomic research needs to bes timulated because it is an essential tool for managing biodiversity and mobilizing its benefits. Research on plant cultivation techniques is important because it can be applied not only to improve a botanic garden's collection but also to reforesting millions of hectares of degraded land.

Since policy-makers, activitsts, and scientists cannot slow biodiversity loss without wider public support, a multi-faceted effort is required to expand public awareness about biodiversity's importance and to strengthen the public's will and ability to act. While the avenues for strengthening awareness vary with place and culture, every society has numerous communication tools at its disposal.

Actions to expand human capacity

Increase appreciation and awareness of biodiversity's values and importance.

• Build awareness of the importance and values of biodiversity into popular culture.

• Use the formal education system to increase awareness about biodiversity and the need for its conservation.

• Integrate biodiversity concerns into education outside of the classroom.

Help institutions disseminate the information needed to conserve biodiversity and mobilize its benefits.

• Establish or strengthen national or sub-national institutions providing information on the conservation and potential values of biodiversity.

• Undertake national biodiversity inventories and produce periodic national biodiversity assessments.

• Establish a global biodiversity information network to speed the flow of data for local, national, regional, and global assessments.

• Provide all citizens with legal and institutional guarantees of access to information on development projects and other activities with potential impacts on biodiversity.

Promote basic and applied research on biodiversity conservation.

• Systematically assess national biodiversity research priorities.

• Promote basic and applied natural sciences research on biodiversity conservation.

• Strengthen social science research on the connections between biological and social processes.

• Strengthen research on ethical, cultural, and religious concerns related to conserving biodiversity.

Develop human resources capacity for biodiversity conservation.

• Increase support for training biodiversity professionals, particularly in developing countries.

• Revise career incentives provided by governments to increase the attractiveness of work in the field.

• Strengthen the influence and capacity of non-governmental conservation and development organizations to promote biodiversity conservation.