This is the context of your involvement and action. You are involved in a life-saving enterprise. The wetlands that you care for, as well as the wetlands of faraway places, all wetlands, are of crucial importance for this water-scarce planet. The ways we view the goods and services provided by ecosystems, our understanding of our impacts, and our responses to the problems are also fragmented. We need to see a river or lake, along with its entire watershed and all its physical, chemical, and biological elements, as part of a complex, integrated system.
Human inhabitants are also part of that system.
Once we adopt a more comprehensive view of nature, we can learn to interact with ecosystems in ways that maintain their integrity, in what may be called ecosystem management. In an ecosystem-based approach, resources can be managed over large enough areas and long enough time scales to allow their species and ecological processes to remain intact while still allowing human activity. On a social level, involving all stakeholders in defining problems, setting priorities, and implementing solutions is essential. Finally, another important question that communities should also take on board, is the question of the economic valuation of wetlands. Under Secretary of State Tim Wirth from his speech at a forest symposium in Washington on 3 April.