• Absence of conservation at the policy-making level.
• Lack of environmental planning and of rational use allocation.
• Poor legislation and organization.
• Lack of training and of basic information.
• Lack of support for conservation.
• Lack of conservation-based rural development.

2 As well as taking the specific measures that will be discussed later, everycountry should prepare its own conservation strategy. Besides helping to focusefforts to overcome the obstacles to conservation, the purpose of nationalconservation strategies is to accelerate the achievement of conservation objectivesby identifying priorities, stimulating action, raising public consciousness andproposing ways of overcoming any apathy or resistance there might be to takingthe action needed. Although the planning and execution of conservation strategiesis primarily the responsibility of governments, non-governmental organizationsshould be fully involved to ensure that all the resources available to conservationare deployed coherently and to the full. Indeed in some countries nongovernmentalorganizations may wish to take the initiative.
2 Preparing A National Strategy

• Integrate. The separation of conservation from development together withnarrow sectoral approaches to living resource management are at the rootof current living resource problems. Many of the priority requirementsdemand a cross- sectoral, inter-disciplinary approach.
• Keep options open. Our understanding of the dynamics and capacities ofmany ecosystems, particularly tropical ones, is often insufficient to assurerational use allocation or high quality management. Scientific knowledge ofthe productive capacities of most tropical ecosystems, as well as of theirability to absorb pollution and other impacts, is generally inadequate. Landand water use, therefore, should be located and managed so that as manyoptions as possible are retained.
• Mix cure with prevention. Current problems are often so severe that it istempting to concentrate on them alone. Impending problems could be stillworse, however, unless early action is taken to prevent them. Strategies foraction should therefore be a judicious combination of cure and prevention.They should tackle current problems and equip peoples and governmentsto anticipate and avoid future problems.
• Focus on causes as well as symptoms. When conservation puts itself intothe position of dealing only with symptoms it appears unduly negative and obstructive. A late attempt to stop or modify a development, whethersuccessful or not, comes across as anti- development (hence anti- people)even though this is seldom the case. The result is either an outright defeator, because it generates hostility and misconceptions, a victory that haswithin it the seeds of future defeats. Furthermore, by the time symptomsappear it is often too late to do anything about them, because manyecologically unsound projects are the results of already fixed policies, andpart of complex and expensive plans that governments are understandablyreluctant to unravel. This said, it is also important not to neglect thesymptoms. Although interventions are more effective the earlier in thedevelopment process they are made, in practice they are needed at allstages. Moreover, it is sometimes not possible to deal with causes, sincemany of them are complex and beyond the capabilities of conservationorganizations to influence. Action directed at causes generally yields resultsonly over the long term. Symptoms may be so acute that action must betaken immediately.

3 Policy Making
2 This narrow interpretation of conservation has at least three importantconsequences.
3 Even when ecological factors are considered, it is seldom at the criticalpolicy-making stage when the basic pattern of development is often fixed. Whenecological considerations are not integrated with policy making, natural resourcesare often destroyed, economic opportunities are lost, and development projectsproduce harmful side-effects or fewer benefits or even fail altogether. Althoughtaking account of ecological factors later on, such as when a project comes up forenvironmental impact assessment is necessary, it is not enough. By that timeadjustments other than cosmetic ones are seldom possible, except at the cost ofgreat social or economic disruption.
4 For example, attempts to minimize the ecological harm (and hence the socialand economic harm) of a dam rarely succeed if ecological factors are consideredonly at the project stage. By then the dam is a key component of other majorprojects (such as land clearance, irrigation, and new settlements), themselvesessential parts of several sectoral programmes. These programmes are oftenexpressions of social and economic policies from which ecological considerationsare entirely absent. Unless ecological considerations influence the developmentprocess as much as do social and economic considerations, and unless there is alsoan explicit policy to achieve conservation objectives, the prospects of avoidingecological harm and making the best of living natural resources are dim.
5 Living resource agencies often concentrate on exploitation rather thanconservation because of the intense competition within governments for scarcefinancial resources, and the consequent pressure on all sectors to show results thatcan be directly related to economic performance. Under the circumstances,agencies with the dual task of regulating and promoting resource development arelikely to find it difficult to balance the two. This difficulty is exacerbated by thelack of a well defined and generally agreed measure of conservation performance.
6 The lack of an acceptable measure of conservation performance is probablyone of the main reasons why central agencies with broad powers to protect theenvironment nonetheless find it difficult to persuade, for example, the forestrydepartment to exploit forests sustainably, or the agricultural department to regulatethe use of agricultural chemicals. It also makes it difficult to relate conservationpolicy goals to other policy goals and therefore to make rational trade- offsbetween them.
7 Three measures are required to overcome these problems and to integrateconservation with development at the policy-making level: anticipatoryenvironmental policies; a cross-sectoral conservation policy; and a broader systemof national accounting.
8 Policies aimed at anticipating significant economic, social and ecologicalevents rather than simply reacting to them are becoming increasingly necessary for
9 Adoption of anticipatory environmental policies poses certain difficulties. Bytheir very nature they require action before damage to the environment has createda demand for it. They also incur the costs of planning, research and preventiveaction and perhaps those of delays or modifications to particular developments.
10 Anticipatory policies enable societies to avoid the high and: annuallyrecurring costs of environmental mistakes, which can frustrate developmentobjectives, waste resources, and impair the very capacity for development.
11 It is essential that everywhere conservation be conducted on a much morecomprehensive basis. This requires all governments to establish a cross-sectoralconservation policy at the highest level, making a public commitment to theachievement of conservation objectives without delay. Not all governments haveexplicit conservation policies, and the policies that exist tend to be narrowlysectoral. Consequently, opportunities for the joint planning and realization of theconservation requirements of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, wildlife, etc may beoverlooked. Indeed, the policies of the sectors concerned may conflict. Similarly,the interests of sectors not usually thought of as deriving benefits from livingresource conservation may be neglected.
12 Conservation has an important contribution to make to the successfuloperation of a great many government programmes, including human settlements,health, agriculture, fisheries and industry. It can, for example, help a healthprogramme, not only by promoting a healthier environment and safeguarding watersupplies, but also by preserving the genetic resources needed for the production ofmedicines. In addition. as a matter of policy, the primary mission of governmentagencies directly concerned with living resources should be conservation. The needfor food, fuel and fibre and other natural products, as well as for foreign exchange,may tempt living resource managers into encouraging or permitting overexploitationof the resources in question or the undermining of the ecologicalprocesses and genetic diversity on which they depend. This is highly likely if policygoals are concerned mainly with production and only incidentally withmaintenance.
4 Costs Of Conservation
1 The costs of conservation as well as of measures to improve human welfarein other ways, may often appear to outweigh the benefits, since the costs areentirely calculable in money while the benefits are not. This is not a deficiency ofconservation, nor of economics, but is the result of extending the use of economictools to policy areas where they are not applicable. In evaluating the costs andbenefits of conservation (and of many other human endeavours), it is useful todistinguish four kinds of value:
2 Thus a whale may be of economic value to commercial whalers, of usefulvalue to subsistence hunters, of intrinsic value to other people for its beauty, and ofsymbolic value to still others as a symbol of conservation. Economic and usefulvalues can be quantified, in terms of money and in terms of whatever measure isappropriate (for example, weight or protein in the case of meat) respectively.
3 It is wise to distinguish carefully between each of these kinds of value. Manyproposed public works, for example, have an unstated symbolic value (symbolizing'development' or 'progress') and great efforts may be made to inflate estimates ofthe economic benefits and deflate those of the costs in order to accommodate theproject's symbolic worth. When cost-benefit analyses attempt to put a price onitems of useful, intrinsic or symbolic value, the assumptions behind such pricefixing should be made explicit, so that the policy maker can decide what weight togive the various factors in the analysis. Also, for adequate account to be taken ofthe costs of destroying or damaging living resources and of the benefits ofconserving them, non-economic indicators of conservation performance should beselected for inclusion in national accounting systems. This is easier said than done,but possible indicators are outlined below.