The politics of preserving natural areas in Third World States

Summary Any attempts to preserve Third World ecosystems must recognize that the ultimate decisions lie with the governments of these sovereign states, which have to deal with widespread demands for higher living standards as well as growing populations. To deal with the powerful pressures of economic growth, the most promising strategy for conservationists is to press the Western industrialized states, where the conservation movement is relatively strong, to join with the Third World in an international agreement whereby the latter would preserve portions of threatened ecosystems in exchange for compensation provided from the industralized countries, most plausibly through an agreement to reduce Third World countries' debt. To reinforce this protection, the industrialized states could agree to purchase tropical ecosystem products only from those states which agree to preserve certain portions of their ecosystems. While there would be great problems both in working out the levels of compensation and in persuading the industrialized states to participate in such a scheme, intensive lobbying by conservation groups might be enough to bring it to fruition.Dr. John Cartwright, who teaches courses in environmental politics and African politics at the University of Western Ontario, took degrees from Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, and the University of Toronto. From 1963 to 1966 he taught at the University of Sierra Leone in Freetown. He has produced three books on African politics, his most recent beingPolitical Leadership in Africa (1983). He has also been interested for many years in natural history and conservation issues, which have taken him on several visits to Latin America as well as to Africa.