By Mary van Tamelen

Dr. Jeff Langholz, of the Monterey Institute of International Studies, spoke to the Morning Forum last week concerning the ever-increasing privatization of conservation areas - both in the United States and around the world.

National parks, he said, are an important part of our lives.

Last year, for instance, our country’s parks had 287 million visitors. But, just as the private sector has intruded upon our lives in the areas of garbage collection, education, health care, utilities and security, so is it taking over land conservation and protection.

One Bay Area man, for instance, owns more than 600,000 acres of Chile.

Enormous tracts of land, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, are owned and operated by no-government entities - individuals, non-profit organizations or corporations.

Individual owners, according to Langholz, are “conservation cowboys,” out on the frontier, protecting or exploiting sustainable land use. Then there are many non-profit organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy, establishing land trusts to protect biodiversity. And finally there are corporations, such as from the logging or oil industry, establishing conservation areas, often with ulterior motives.

Why is there this sudden trend to private ownership of protected land space?

Langholz cited three reasons. First, there is a genuine international concern for the protection of biodiversity. Within every two hours, seven species become extinct. Like rivets on an airplane, each species is doing its individual job for life on earth. Then, there is the failure of governments to protect land. Worldwide, the goal is the protection of 10 percent of the land. While 7 percent is now technically protected, a lot of that is on paper only.

And third, there is the eco-tourism explosion. Travel has recently surpassed oil as the biggest industry on earth, and eco-tourism is the newest, and most profitable, branch.

The promises that privatization holds out are many: more protection of more diverse spaces, more potential human values, help to governments, the democratic inclusion of several people on all levels.

The perils, likewise, are many: the protection is often tenuous, without long-term commitments; the areas involved are often too small; there is a possible conflict of interest when private owners try to put moneymaking as the main goal; and the land becomes consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, making for “islands of elite.”

Langholz said, it is imperative for us to make sure that it includes the protection of both biodiversity and human dignity.