To support the advocacy of these issues is to support the cause of biodiversity conservation. Indeed, people living in areas of high biodiversity value may have more convincing reasons to over-exploit resources than to conserve them.
Many communities simply have no economic incentives to conserve biodiversity.
In these communities, the key to successful conservation is making sure that they share the benefits fairly and do not shoulder a disporportionate share of the costs. In many others where economic incentives do exist, local authorities and communities need to regulate the use of biodiversity within wider resource management plans and to apply technical skills to manage and conserve biological resources. Important here are legally recognized and enforceable rights to land, which give the communities both an economic incentive and a legal basis for stewardship. Governments often misinterpret calls for greater community involvement in biological resource management as demands to turn the whole enterprise over to local people. In fact, communities must manage their biological wealth within the wider context of obligations and responsibilities to the nation and the world, and local communities need various government services to be effective resource managers.