antidesertification aid more creatively and efficiently by, for exam- 

 ple, promoting better planning, involvement of local communities 

 and regional cooperation. And it will require donors to do a better 

 job of coordination than has sometimes been the case in the past. 



Of course, we know that preserving the endangered species of Af- 

 rica is a matter of the utmost urgency. Secretary Babbit's certifi- 

 cation of China and Taiwan under the Pelly Amendment for their 

 trade in rhino horn, as well as Asian tiger parts, reflects this ad- 

 ministration's determination to act before it is too late. 



Under the African Elephant Conservation Act, the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service, which plays a very important role in all of this, 

 provides significant assistance to range states involved in the often 

 desperate war against poaching. There is similar legislation, the 

 Wild Bird Conservation Act, under which one of these days we 

 hopefully will have some funding to do some projects in Africa on 

 that front, similar to what we are doing in Latin America. 



On a bilateral basis, we have just in the last year enabled sev- 

 eral U.S. technical agencies to support basic science research on en- 

 vironmental issues. This is through the appropriation provided to 

 the Oceans, Environment and Science Bureau that I work for, 

 OES. These include a cooperative fisheries study in Senegal, a col- 

 laborative study and survey of the biota in Madagascar, and a min- 

 eral potential study in the Horn of Africa. 



I would not want to suggest that our current environmental pol- 

 icy is perfect. It needs strengthening in a number of areas and, of 

 course, it has, as all intended good things do, to cope with the prob- 

 lem of budgetary resources. I think we need to do more to effec- 

 tively support U.S. NGO's working on environmental issues, and to 

 keep embassies informed about the depth and complexity of U.S. 

 NGO involvement, and at the same time to encourage linkages be- 

 tween American NGO's and their African counterparts. This is 

 something that embassies (including AID Missions and the invalu- 

 able Peace Corps) can do because they are there on the ground. 



We badly need a small project fund, within existing resources, to 

 replace the defunct Biodiversity Fund, which you may recall was 

 financed in 1991 and 1993 through the Security Assistance Ac- 

 count. A fund like this would enable U.S. Ambassadors to support 

 new biodiversity initiatives that they spot in the field, and would 

 not necessarily, as the old fund was, require that this money be 

 channeled through the local military, which the Biodiversity Fund 

 did because it was out of FMF funding. I personally never quite un- 

 derstood how that happened, but it did. 



We also need to make greater use of regional funding capabilities 

 to support our global environmental concerns in those African 

 countries which do not have on which are losing AID missions. And 

 I would underline that this is very important because there are a 

 lot of countries out there that are extremely important from an en- 

 vironmental point of view. They are not in the developmental main- 

 stream and we need to be able to take care of them consonant with 

 our own interests. We are planning a regional program focused on 

 the Central African rain forest with that in mind, which will look 

 at the whole range of biodiversity issues and which will have as a 

 hallmark support of NGO's who are already working in the area. 



