Abstract:
The only certain way to save tropical biodiversity
is to use it sustainably. To use it
requires saving it as conserved wildlands
and detcnnining what is in them. Both these
steps must be carried out by local human
resources and a home-grown scientific and
administrative system. but the development
of both of these requires facilitation by the
international scientific community. This facilitation
requires that the international scientific
community abandons its contemporary
view of tropical biodiversity as largely
an intellectual resoura: to be harvested by the extra-tropical academic community.
Sustainable use of tropical biodiversity re·
quires goal-dirccted search for intellectual
and economic uses, realistic evaluation of
impact by usen, recognition that the wild·
land administration itself is a user, and the
establishment of a mechanism by which tbe
UIer community truly pays for use. Income
ranges from on-site entrance and use fees to
• direct payment for ofT·site environmental services to royalties derived from the direct
commercialization of biodiversity information
such as phytochemicals and genes. A
mechanism must be found whereby these
fees come to pay the management costs for
lropical wildlands. A National Biodiversity
Institute is a mechanism to promote and
develop all of these processes in coordination
with the institutional management of
the conserved wildlands themselves. Examples
from Costa Rica are used to illustrate
aU of these problems and processes.
