Conservation, Protected Areas and the Global Economic System: How Debt, Trade, Exchange Rates, Inflation and Macroeconomic Policy Affect Biological Diversity
The global economic system is characterised by international specialisation in production, massive amounts of production and trade in goods and services and the presence of international flows of finance, capital and technology. The system is bound together by the use of money and markets which rely on and foster self-interested production and exchange of commodities. To some extent, the system is supplemented by international movements of labour and by official and unofficial aid. Major decision makers in the global system include private traders and financiers, multinational corporations, national (centralised) governments and international public service bodies such as the United Nations and its agencies. The system results in the replacements of ecosphere communities by biosphere communities and depersonalizes social, economic and environmental relationships. The system places great pressure on natural resources, results in the increased loss of natural areas and of biodiversity and adds to global pollution. Its major consequence is the much greater externalisation of environmental •effects of economic activity. The system is a threat to the sustainability of production in the long run, despite its economic advantages such as reduced economic scarcity as a whole in the short- to medium-term. Natural areas in isolated or relatively isolated economies are at particular risk when these economies are drawn into the global system particularly if significant economic growth in achieved. In such cases, natural areas must increasingly be officially protected or set aside for national parks if irreversible genetic loss is to be avoided. At this time, aid from developed countries for nature protection may be crucial. Once a country becomes 'developed' and integrated into the global economic system, conservation of nature and therefore biodiversity becomes heavily dependent on government maintenance and protection of natural areas. In. tum this relies substantially on po