A challenge to conservationists: Phase II.

• Author: Flavin, Chris
• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the Editor

Mac Chapin's article in the November/December issue of World Watch has generated the heaviest flow of letters to the editor since we began producing the magazine in 1988. This overwhelming response has led us to publish an unprecedented number of those letters in this issue, including reactions from leaders of the "Big Three" conservation organizations that were at the center of Chapin's story.

As you will see in the letters that follow, both the facts and their interpretation are hotly debated by experts and officials from a range of organizations. But we are heartened to find that there is substantial consensus on the core issue the article addresses: that the needs of indigenous peoples and healthy ecosystems must be more effectively integrated in conservation programs than they are today. We hope that Chapin's article and the responses published here will spur the kind of dialogue and commitment to change that will be needed if consensus in words is to be translated into action on the ground.

There is no doubt that Chapin's article has made a lot of people uncomfortable, but discomfort is...