Conclusions
Many of the present threats to tropical biodiversity have been played out in
temperate regions in the past few centuries. Current technologies have enabled
habitat destruction to spread from primarily temperate regions to tropical
areas at an unprecedented rate and magnitude. Global impacts of tropical area
degradation should be argument enough for all countries to work toward
global conservation goals, with local, national, and regional peoples and gov-
ernments working in concert. There is a critical need for wealthy countries,
organizations, and individuals to contribute to tropical conservation efforts
because of the mutual benefit to all countries (Barrett et al. 2001). However,
current state policies are instead focused on practices that bring short-term
gain; for example, an estimated $1.5 trillion per year is spent on subsidies that
are both economically and environmentally destructive (Myers 1999). The full
use of environmental sciences for conservation of tropical ecosystems can pro-
vide the basis for strong social, economic, and political decisions to best pro-
tect tropical biodiversity.
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30 I. Conservation Biology and Landscape Ecology in the Tropics