Habitats Critical To Earth Identified World Wildlife Fund Names 200 Regions That Must Be Saved

Comparing itself to Noah choosing animals for the ark, the World Wildlife Fund on Thursday identified more than 200 regional habitats it said must be saved to preserve irreplaceable species for the next millennium.

“The centerpiece of the World Wildlife Fund campaign … will be the protection and restoration of unique harbors of life, what we call the Global 200,” said fund President Kathryn Fuller at a news conference here.

The World Wildlife Fund is one of the leading international non-profit organizations working to protect the environment in more than 100 countries.

Publication of the Global 200 list marks the end of a three-year scientific process of identifying regions with the most outstanding samples of plant and animal species - both on land and in water - and the beginning of another three-year campaign to urge governments and businesses around the world to conserve these regions.

“We believe the Global 200 can be both a guide and an inspiration to people around the world,” said James P. Leape, a WWF senior vice president.

“The next 1,000 days can be a turning point,” Leape said. Saturday marks the 1,000th day to the year 2000. “With 1,000 days left, let’s look at what we can do to pass to the next century a planet that is better.”

In the most ambitious conservation effort ever undertaken by an environmental group, the World Wildlife Fund is attempting to shift global attention from preserving individual species or types of habitats such as tropical rain forests, to protecting a broad sample of ecological regions covering the various land formations, freshwater lakes and rivers, and fragile areas of the world’s oceans, bays and estuaries.

“The world is undergoing a wave of extinction of species and habitats unprecedented for our planet,” said WWF chief scientist Eric Dinerstein. “If we can conserve the broadest areas of habitats, we can conserve the broadest areas of species.”

The list of 232 ecoregions includes 24 in the United States, stretching from the Alaskan tundra to the Hawaiian forests and surrounding waters to Oregon’s Klamath-Siskiyou coniferous forests, to the Southeast’s rivers and streams to the Florida Everglades.

Of the 13 most critical ecoregions worldwide, the Everglades and Klamath-Siskiyou coniferous forests were the only ones in the Untied States.

While much attention has been devoted lately to preserving the tropical rain forests where roughly half the world’s species live, Dinerstein said it was important to preserve other ecoregions which may contain rare forms of plant and animal life.

As part of its effort, WWF plans to criticize governments or companies that exploit the environment and praise those that protect the ecoregions, calling such efforts “gifts to the Earth.”

Four gifts to the Earth efforts were praised Thursday, including action by Florida officials to protect nearly 3,000 square nautical miles within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Other gifts to the Earth were recognized, including the president of Panama for blocking completion of the Pan-American Highway and the president of Mongolia for committing to preserving 30 percent of the country’s land area, home to the snow leopard and the lynx. The organization also praised four major oil companies for giving up exploration rights to 320,000 acres off Canada’s Pacific coast.

To promote its efforts, the World Wildlife Fund has created an Web site at http:/www.worldwildlife.org/action/. Among the features on the Web site is a countdown clock that shows the time left until the start of the year 2000.