The same can be said for another threatening global commons issues- the loss of forest cover and the advance of deserts ans savannas the world over. Few of us realize how central a role forests play. Along with woodlands and scattered trees, forests provide the planet's population with shelter, food, fuelwood, medicines, building materials and paper. About two-thirds of all terrestrial species are in forest areas, which are thus critical to biodiversity conservation. And when forests grow, they squester carbon-so they are crucial part of the fight against global warming.

Global Warming is rapidly emerging as one of the toughest and most threatening of the twenty or so inherently global issues. This issue is so big, so much in the limeligh, that the author spends more time on it than on the others in this chapter.

Biodiversity and ecosystem protection is one of the big and urgent global issues of the decade to come. The solutions are too complex to be laid out here, but a global framework would include many elements: protected areas, actively managed preserves, trade bans, integrated ecosystem management, certification of sustainability, seed banks, satellite monitoring, and many others. It's not that some of these haven't been tried, but it's a matter of critical mass and global resolve-and of increasing the modest resources currently devoted to conservation by a large factor.