Concentrate on protecting those essential things that the natural world provides us-like clean water-and we’ll wind up better stewards of nature in the long run. Make nature relevant to everyday lives and you can produce billions of grass-roots conservationists, each with a vested interest in seeing a workable balance struck between human beings and the environment. (37)

What we must have is a vision of the future in which the needs of people and nature are balanced, based on the hard facts of growing population, huge climate impacts, and expanding agriculture and energy exploration. The conservation of the future will be less and less about protected areas and increasingly about working landscapes, in which the most intrusive human activities are planned for and managed to generate the least damage and to avoid irreplaceable natural systems that cannot tolerate heavy impacts. The key is to take each of the major needs of people, water, food, livelihoods, security and health-and find the future that meets these needs and protects nature. (38)