Countries have to think big when considering protected areas and Guyana has the ideal opportunity to convert 50% of its territory for this type of land use, Dr John Terborgh, a United States scientist, says.

Dr Terborgh said 50% of land is the ideal proportion of land needed for conservation.

Speaking yesterday at a symposium organised by the University of Guyana in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institute at the Ocean View International Hotel, he noted that Guyana's natural habitat which remains intact amounts to some 80% of its land mass so "the 50% goal could be achieved with little sacrifice".

He argued that if half of Guyana's land was to be protected, it would still allow for the expansion of the developed portion of the country which would allow plenty of room for economic growth.

Dr Terborgh plugged the concept of conservation concessions developed by Conservation International (CI) in which that organisation would be allowed to bid on equal terms with timber companies for the right to hold forests.

He said it was the kind of market mechanism favoured by today's economic gurus who promote free trade and the global economy.

"For governments, conservation concessions represent a win-win opportunity," Dr Terborgh said. "They would receive higher royalties than the timber industry would pay, and at the end of the day, the resource would still be intact."

He contended that eco-tourism and adventure tourism could provide as many jobs as a logging operation.

"This is a deal in which nobody loses except some foreign timber barons," he said. "Are we going to cry for them? I hope not."

He went on to say: "By granting conservation concessions to CI and other such organisations, Guyana can easily conserve 50% of its territory and make money while doing so."

Dr Terborgh said there were a lot of answers to the question of what could be done to prevent the gradual withering away of the earth's biodiversity on a malfunctioning protected areas system.

He declared the most important consideration is the area of conserved habitat, for it has been proven that large contiguous tracts of habitat conserve biodiversity better than small ones.

He noted that small parks could accommodate only small populations of wide-ranging species, and small populations are highly vulnerable to extinction.

He pointed out that when diverse species like jaguars, tapirs, harpy eagles, and white-lipped peccaries go extinct, there are repercussions that reverberate through the entire ecological system. Adding to the vulnerability of small populations, is the tendency of these species to wander outside the boundaries of the protected area. If they are species like the jaguar, which are feared by the populace, they are most often shot.

Dr Terborgh said the leakage of large animals from small parks has led to the extinction of predators like lions and tigers from nearly all but the largest parks in Asia and Africa.

"A fact of life that conservationists now confront is that the great majority of the world's existing protected areas are not adequate to ensure the perpetuation of the biodiversity they contain," he stated.

He said Guyana has the ideal chance to benefit from conservation biology unlike most countries which already had protected areas established before the advent of such information. Dr Terborgh said to conserve nature, the countries of the world have to think big.

"The forces that tie nature together and keep it intact are forces that operate on large scales," he stated.

Dr Terborgh spoke of three paradigms which have guided strategies and policies of conservation over the last 140 years.

Monumentalism was one paradigm and he gave as an example of this the Yellowstone National Park in the US. Dr Terborgh said under this concept, parks are created to protect extraordinary natural, historical or cultural features. In the Guyana situation, the creation of the Kaieteur National Park is participation in the monumentalist tradition, he said.

He said despite the objections before creation of the parks in the US, there would now be unanimous opposition if there is a call for any of them to be decommissioned. Yellowstone now drew millions of tourists every year.

The revenues the visitors take to local businesses vastly exceed the economic benefits which may accrue from exploiting the land directly, Dr Terborgh stated.

He told the gathering that they must run away with the impression that the prospect of economic benefits from tourism should be the principal motivation for conserving biodiversity.

He said biodiversity has intrinsic value and should be conserved for its own sake. "Nature is in retreat all over the globe. Every year there is less of it. As a result, the dwindling remainder inexorably becomes more valuable," Dr Terborgh said.

Protectionism is the second concept of conservation Dr Terborgh spoke about. He said the goal of this paradigm is specifically to conserve a rare species or biological community.

The application of the protectionist concept has been called representation. Conservation biologists have, however, discovered in the last two decades that the assumption that protection of a species within one or more officially sanctioned reserves would eliminate the risk of extinction was wrong.

Evidence has been uncovered that species of animals had gone extinct in nearly every national park in the US, including the largest--Yellowstone.

Dr Terborgh said the realisation that creating parks, even large ones, did not protect extinction created the third paradigm--preservation.

"It is not enough to protect species behind barbed wire. We must provide them with the conditions they need to survive in perpetuity," he stated.

Dr Terborgh is from Duke University, North Carolina.

The three-day symposium has the theme "The Biodiversity of Guyana: A Global perspective for the future." (Andrew Richards)