Everyone is aware that tropical moist primary forest have been disappearing by millions of hectares. Natural habitats are being transformed to small farms or large-scale agricultural monocultures such as soybean and sugarcane, and extensive livestock ranching, etc.These forests are however the home to some of the planet's highest biodiversity, including very large numbers of living organisms and ecosystems, which are still unknown to science.
Since the extinction of wild species is primarily due to the loss of their habitat, and since this loss results from socio-economic pressures favoring alternative land-uses, it must be demonstrated that wild products can be equally or even more profitable" The contribution of wildlife as a natural resource of great social and economic value for rural populations as food, local and international trade was recognized by all participants". A meeting was held in Manaus, with the support of the Foundation. All participants, except those from Costa-Rica and El Salvador, expressed however regrets that the value of wildlife as a resource was not recognizes by Latin American governments and, as a result, funding for wildlife research, conservation and development projects and law enforcement was very limited.
This situation is slowly changing, but protectionist attitudes must be altered so as to encourage the sustainable of valuable fauna and flora, in order to open and/or develop controlled national and international markets for this biodiversity, so as to justify and motivate its long-term conservation and development.