On New Capitalism.

• Author: Gray, Linda
• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the editor

"A New Capitalism" by Peter Barnes [September/October] talks of adding "a commons sector to balance the corporate sector." It goes on to say, "If the corporate sector devours nature, the commons sector would protect it." Under this "New Capitalism," in order to know what most desperately needs protection in nature, there needs to be an accounting system for that. Those who are the economists for nature will have to work hand in hand with those who are locating and identifying the most threatened of what's left of our natural world. Under such an economic system, the planning process for land "development," mineral extraction, wars, etc. (nature-devouring activities) would include parallel planning for the protection of wildlife habitat.

In order to protect wildlife, core areas--large and biologically significant enough to support entire ecosystems with all the natural diversity of a particular region--would need to be identified and protected. However, without connectivity to other such core areas, these places would just become islands of diversity, susceptible to the same sorts of genetic disease impacts of an ordinary farm if all its plants and animals were continuously inbred, generation after generation. Therefore, successful land planning for the natural world would necessarily require a network of core areas linked together across the landscape by corridors that allow for animal migration and seed dispersal. This ingenious vision is called the Wildlands Project (www.twp.org). It was developed over the last couple of decades in North America and there are numerous conservation planning projects throughout the continent that have used it as a template.

Computer mapping technology (geographic information systems, or GIS) can help implement this conservation planning vision. GIS software already used by governments, industries, corporations, and militaries for project planning is also being made available through grants to nonprofit conservation organizations so that they have the same mapping capabilities. Internationally, the Society for Conservation GIS (www.scgis.org) uses this software to map the biological areas of greatest importance. And there are many national and global conservation organizations that now include GIS as part of their conservation efforts.

Once located, mapped, and valued (inventoried), the biologically intact areas of the world can be protected, either by governments (as reserves, wilderness areas, parks, etc.)...