which will address the question of the rain forests of the Congo 

 Basin, which you alluded to, which are the second largest rain for- 

 ests mass in the world. And this will be an effort which will in ef- 

 fect build on the existing work of nongovernmental organizations, 

 and try to encourage more cooperation. 



There are a lot of other programs which are relevant to this 

 topic, including the money that the Fish and Wildlife Service pro- 

 vides for elephant conservation. And a new endeavor, which you 

 may be aware of, which is the International Coral Reef Initiative. 

 This is a pioneering effort by the United States to mobilize atten- 

 tion and resources to arrest the degradation of coral reefs. There 

 are a lot of coral reefs off the east coast of Africa. And to encourage 

 again a sense of community stewardship of this priceless resource, 

 priceless both from an economic point of view and from the point 

 of view of its biodiversity. 



My final point is that I do not think that there is a fundamental 

 conflict between development and conservation in Africa. In one 

 sense, there is. People usually need money here and now, and often 

 those requirements are not immediately in support of conservation. 



But in the final analysis, good development technologies and 

 good conservation technologies are both about sustainable manage- 

 ment. And I might add that they are also about democratization. 

 Because it is community involvement that is usually the key to 

 sustainable management. 



By the right kind of assistance programming, we can encourage 

 the type of approach from which we will in the end get multiple 

 benefits in terms of resource conservation, in terms of productivity, 

 in terms of guarding against hunger, and in terms of the promotion 

 of democratization. 



All of those things can go together, and can be achieved with the 

 same program dollar. That is tne thrust of what I was going to say 

 at some length. And I thank you very much. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Pringle appears in the appendix.] 



Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. We appreciate 

 your comments. 



Mr. Ambassador, what Mr. Johnston was talking about, the pop- 

 ulation programs, could you tell us your viewpoint on these. 



Do you think that one of the problems is over-population per se, 

 or is it that there are too many people are grouped in one place 

 and not enough in another place? 



Mr. Pringle. I was going to say in my written testimony that 

 most land degradation is caused by human activities. We know 

 that. It is exacerbated by population growth, as greater numbers 

 of people are pushed on to less productive lands. That certainly is 

 the pattern. 



I do not think that there are too many places in Africa today 

 where there are lands that are easily farmed that are not pretty 

 well populated, and I think that is tne problem. There are plenty 

 of places that are lightly populated. But usually, there is a good 

 reason for that. It is oecause these are difficult environments. And 

 your environmental problems begin when you get too many people 

 pushed into marginal environments. 



Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Although I have other questions, we have a 

 quorum call, and then another vote right after that. So I will yield 



