rassment to them. That period is very well pictured in the movie 

 "Gorillas in the Mist". But over the last 10 or 15 years, there has 

 been growing realization that not only is this wonderful phenome- 

 non a source of national pride, but also a source of revenue. 



Even at the relatively low state of development that has existed 

 in Rwanda, ecotourism has been pushing coffee, which is tradition- 

 ally their number one foreign exchange earner. And if peace is re- 

 stored, that whole region could become a significant tourist circuit. 



That kind of awareness is spreading, as well as awareness, on 

 the risk side, of environmental failure. And it is causing Africans 

 to become interested in doing something. And one evidence of that 

 that we have seen very recently was the African sponsorship of a 

 U.N. Convention on Desertification, which was phrased in very re- 

 alistic terms. They did not say simply we want more money to 

 throw at this problem. They said we want help in trying to work 

 together cooperatively involving local communities and doing the 

 other things which we know will work to promote the sustainable 

 development of drylands. 



And for that reason, the United States supports that Convention. 

 We signed it in June. And I think again that this is testimony to 

 the maturity of the Africans in approaching their environmental 

 problems. 



The third point that I would like to make is that the United 

 States is helping as best we can to deal with these problems. And 

 there are two main ways that we go about this. First, as you know, 

 we have a series of multilateral conventions, which focus on the 

 global aspects of environmental problems. And these include the 

 Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biodiversity, 

 and the newly signed one on Desertification. I would also mention 

 the CITES agreement, which regulates the international trade en- 

 dangered species. 



Most of these multilateral agreements are basically bargains or 

 compacts between the North and the South, if you will, in which 

 we agree that these are assets of global importance and global 

 value. And we agree also to try to work together to work out solu- 

 tions, and to help each other to achieve solutions. 



The environmental conventions are very important. They are not 

 sufficient in and of themselves. So our second approach is through 

 bilateral assistance as well as our contribution to the multilateral 

 development banks, both of which I think I need not say are at 

 some risk at the moment for budgetary reasons. 



There is a lot going on here. Certainly, one of the major planks 

 in our AID program in Africa is to encourage the sustainable devel- 

 opment of natural resources. AID is spending approximately $80 

 million a year through the Development Fund fx)r Africa on this 

 subject at the moment. 



We know that if you get farmers, herders and their communities 

 involved and you can help them gain a sense of stewardship over 

 their resources, that this is the best way to achieve sustainable de- 

 velopment. In other words, doing the same kind of thing that we 

 did in this country in the dust bowl in the 1930's, to arrest the deg- 

 radation of very fragile dry land ecosystems. 



That is one major aspect. We are, I would say, a little bit behind 

 with regard to forestry. But there is a proposed project underway 



