countries as single units. Mark Plotkin, vice-president of plant conservation for the Washington based group, Conservation International, has said "We shouldn't need an economic reason to save tropical forests, but clearly we do" (Wallace 37). The local and indigenous people also need an economic reason to save the rain forests. The indigenous people have always used the forest to provide food, medicine, and shelter. It is a myth that the forest was untouched, by humans, until loggers and settlers arrived and destroyed it.
The local people have been exploited by buyers of rain forest products. As the result, the local people often feel the only means to a better life is to claim land from the forest and, then they sell it and claim some more (Nations 196-7). The failure to address the needs of the peasants in setting up parks and reserves must be considered. The position, of many, of the worlds conservation organizations is well put by Jeffrey McNeely, of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. "Protected areas must serve human society if they are to survive in a period of increasing demands on nature" (Nations 198).
To accomplish the goal, of having the rain forest and human beings coexisting together in a mutually beneficial state, the non-government organizations, the organizations promoting conservation, have implemented several strategies which contribute economic well being to the local people and conserve the forest at the same time. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has promoted the idea of biosphere reserves as a means of combining forest preservation and the needs of the local population (Nations 198). The independent nonprofit conservation organizations have focused on developing markets for forest products. Conservation International, and Cultural Survival are two organizations where this strategy is slowly having an impact...