Until recently, conservationists did not focus on these broader issues involving conservation and economic goals as a way of more effectively to protect wild species. However as the situation has gotten worse this has begun to change, especially as reserves have faced mounting pressures from civilizations that surround them, as environmental concerns have become more institutionalized in government programs, and as conservationists have recognized the indisputable links between an area's need for economic growth and its environmental goals. Much more work, however, needs to be done. In fashioning strategies, those committed to preserving biodiversity need to make choices. Only by working on a broad front can such a coalition hope to ensure that limited biological resources are effectively employed.
Tropical regions contain more than two-thirds of all the world's species.
About 1.4 million living species have been named and described by scientists. Current estimates of the total number of species range from 5 to 30 million. Recent studies in tropical rain forests suggest that there might be 30 million species of insects alone. Based on estimates of 30 million species total, it has been calculated that we may be losing as many as 17,500 species per year. There are many plants and animals that we have never seen and of whose existence we are unaware.