"The one process ongoing in the 1990s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendants are least likely to forgive us."

Successful action to conserve biodiversity must address the full range of causes of its current loss and embrace the opportunities that genes, species, and ecosystems provide for sustainable development. Because the goal of biodiversity conservation -- supporting sustainable development by protection and using biological resources in ways that do not diminish the world's variety of genes and species or destroy important habitats and ecosystems -- is so broad, any biodiversity conservation strategy must also have a broad scope. But the campaign can be broken down into three basic elements:

• saving biodiversity,

• studying it, and

• using it sustainably and equitably.

Saving biodiversity means taking steps to protect genes, species, habitats, and ecosystems. The best way to maintain species is to maintain their habitats. Saving biodiversity therefore often involves efforts to prevent the degradation of key natural ecosystems and to manage and protect them effectively. But since many of the world's habitats have been modified for such human uses as agriculture, the program must include measures to maintain diversity on lands and in waters that have already been disturbed. A third component is restoring lost species to their former habitats and preserving species in genebanks, zoos, botanic gardens, and other off-site (ex situ) facilities.

Studying biodiversity means documenting its composition, distribution, structure, and function; understanding the roles and functions of genes, species, and ecosystems; grasping the complex links between modified and natural systems; and using this understanding to support sustainable development. It also means building awareness of biodiversity's values, providing opportunities for people to appreciate nature's variety, integrating biodiversity issues into educational curricula, and ensuring that the public has access to information on biodiversity, especially on developments that will influence it locally.

Using biodiversity sustainably and equitably means husbanding biological resources so that they last indefinitely, making sure that biodiversity is used to improve the human condition, and seeing that these resources are shared equitably. "Use" does not, however, authomatically imply consumption. Often, the best economic use of biodiversity may be to maintain it in its natural state for its ecological or cultural values, as in the cases of forested watersheds or sacred groves.

The biodiversity conservation agenda must encompass much more than concern for protected areas, threatened species, zoos or seedbanks and its constituency must be broad-based. It has to take place within the wide context of the move toward sustainable living discussed in Our Common Future -- the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development -- and detailed in Caring for the Earth, the successor and complement to the World Conservation Strategy.

How can biodiversity conservation be addressed within the context of sustainable development, as it must to succeed? There must be new contacts and partnerships within communities, bringing biologists and resource managers together with social scientists, political leaders, businessmen, religious leaders, farmers, journalists, artists, planners, teachers, and lawyers. There must be dialogue between central and local governments, industry, and citizen's groups, including non-governmental environment and development organizations, and women's and indigenous peoples organizations. New mechanisms for discussion, negotiation, and common action are all essential.

Biodiversity conservation must take place at the individual level, the global level, and in between. Effective conservation efforts begin in the fields, forests, watersheds, grasslands, coastal zones, and settlements where people live and work. But complementary governmental efforts are needed to address the many facets of biodiversity conservation beyond the capacity of local communities, or involving resources that are of national importance. By the same token, international cooperation is essential, given the global nature of the biodiversity crisis and the lack of national resources in many countries.

Many essential elements of biodiversity conservation require sustained commitment, but will not show immediate results. Policies, institutions, laws, and attitudes do not change overnight; expanding human capacity, carrying out first-rate research, and conducting biodiversity inventories take time and money and may have no immediate pay-off. But they create the larger context in which enduring change can take hold and emergency measures have at least a hope of succeeding.

Still, immediate action is needed. Irreplaceable genes, species, and ecosystems are disappearing at a rate unprecedented in human history, and essential development is at risk as a result. Immediate action is needed:

• to defend these threatened living resources;

• to reform the policies that invite such losses;

• to conduct inventory and study of resource use in key ecosystems and countries;

• to monitor changes and impeding threats;

• to better manage threaten protected areas;

• to mobilize funding; and

• to support national and grassroots conservation initiatives.