Last month, a paper entitled "Global Biodiversity Conservation and the Alleviation of Poverty" was published in the journal BioScience. The study marks the first global estimation of biodiversity benefits and ecosystem service flows from habitats to humans. CI Vice President of Conservation Priorities and Outreach Will Turner -- the paper's lead author -- summarizes the study's biggest findings.

In 1961, as Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, ground control heard the awestruck cosmonaut utter, "The Earth is blue." Mere minutes aloft, Gagarin's perch afforded him this simple perspective -- one that four thousand years of earthbound scientific inquiry had yet to offer.

Sometimes we need a global view to see the big picture.

Working in international conservation, I know that nearly all conservation efforts are local. The success of any project or program largely hinges on how well it addresses the needs and constraints defined by a place's people, institutions and conditions, and how well it engages those people and institutions in creating solutions.

We know, for example, that
[Published in GreenNews - Read the original article]