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productivity by investing in new natural resource management practices. These 

 farmers want to increase income and reduce risk of drought, and understand that to do 

 this they must both improve agricultural practices and the natural resource base. 



• The critical importance of secure land and tree tenure. Incentives make a difference. 

 A farmer who does not have secure use rights to the land she tills and who could be 

 forced off of it tomorrow has little incentive to invest in the future. A community 

 that does not benefit from the wildlife with which it must coexist will have no stake in 

 the future of that wildUfe. 



• Empowering people makes a difference. In the Sahel, for example, the Forest Codes 

 have been changed to give local communities control over forest resources, resulting 

 in substantially better management and increased income to the local people. 

 Community-based natural resource management is often the summation of many of 



these other approaches. The success of this approach — making local peoples responsible 

 and accountable for those resources they use — has been remarkable in a wide range of 

 otherwise disparate countries, such as Lesotho, Mali, Senegal, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe. 



In short, the environment is a key to maintaining and increasing economic 

 productivity; but people will only invest in preserving the environment if they recognize its 

 economic value. If the rural poor cannot see a benefit to conserving wildlife, land, and other 

 resources, there will never be enough fences or laws to stop the enviiormiental destruction. 



CONCLUSION 



As I said. Madam Chair, the challenges are great and the outcome is by no means 



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