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Computers are a powerful tool for the dissemination of information. Using his work on PNG forest issues as an example, Glen Barry shows how computer based "informational technologies" can be used to their greatest advantage in the struggle against ecological impoverishment.
by Glen Barry
Significant consensus has emerged concerning the threats facing
the planet's biological diversity and biological health.
Scientists, activists and government officials increasingly are
united in their conviction that humankind's unrestrained
industrial activities in general, and the widespread and
accelerating decline of forests in particular, are degrading the
biosphere. Less progress has been made in communicating to the
general public the consequences of the rapid impoverishment of
biological systems we are now experiencing. This is particularly
true in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and other Pacific island
countries.
The question is, will the signal of green thought prevail in time
to make ecological living the norm? How can technology be used to
achieve the ends of maintaining biodiversity? This paper is meant
to enable others with an interest in PNG, the Pacific region,
and/or forests in general, to understand the potential for
informational campaigning, utilizing a whole range of startlingly
powerful information technologies, like relational databases, the
internet and many other PC-based tools.
The creation of networks through which information flows on
specific ecological issues is one way that individuals can make a
difference. And in opinion gathering, networking and collating of
environmental information which we have carried out on behalf of
PNG's forests could be replicated with great benefit in most
places, and for most environmental and other progressive causes.
Pick a forest and save it.
Over the past several years, I have carried out research on
forest informational campaign strategies; with particular
attention to how to use databases, the internet, and desktop
publishing for the conservation and management of PNG's
rainforests and biodiversity. This forest advocacy research,
largely carried out under the organisational name Ecological
Enterprises, has been action oriented; building information links
and educational opportunities for biodiversity and rainforest
protection, within PNG, and between PNG and the rest of the
world.
Salzman (1989) considers focused advocacy to be a person (or
group) reporting data concerning an area in which they have
expertise and deeply held convictions. This leads to action to
make sure "the information is interpreted correctly and
acted upon (Rohlf 1991)." Salzman adds, that "It is
entirely appropriate--and crucial--for scientists to become
focused advocates..." This message is important for PNG
rainforest advocacy efforts. Ecological Enterprises has become a
leading information center for the processing of information of
and about PNG's and the World's forests, biodiversity and
indigenous cultures. Our advocacy campaign's basic premise is
that ecological and biological considerations need to be inserted
into virtually all resource use decisions, forestry in
particular, if human society is to have a chance to stop the
reduction in biological functionality of the world's ecological
systems.
I will not attempt to address at length the debate concerning
whether conservation should or should not use modern technology
for advocacy or other uses. Significant adverse ecological impact
of just the resources needed to build computers and supply them
are noted. Nonetheless, I am of the opinion that conservationists
have no option but to embrace informational technologies at this
critical juncture. Computers as a tool, not as an end unto
themselves, must be the focus.
PNG's "tropical forests and freshwater wetlands are equal in
biological importance to the Amazon and Congo Basins"
(Alcorn 1993). Forest resources play a vital role in sustaining
the livelihood of its 3.7 million people. PNG covers 46.3 million
hectares, of which about 34.23 million ha are still "covered
by closed natural forest" and about half of which are
accessible for exploitation (Lamb 990).
PNG is in a unique position to defend its rainforests. Over 97%
of the land remains under customary land ownership. PNG law
protects the rights of indigenous landowners to decide land use.
Many PNG NGOs and others, Ecological Enterprises included, have
carried out extensive grassroots educational efforts which have
brought the well-documented social and environmental costs of
industrial logging to numerous village communities. Out of such
awareness, both at the village level in PNG, and with many
hundreds of people on the internet, inevitably comes discussion
of what development options there are that don't inherently
diminish biological and cultural richness.
2.1 Ecological Alternatives Exist--Forest Loss Doesn't Have to
Happen
The indigenous peoples of PNG desperately desire to better their
economic and material condition. Conservation in PNG will fail
unless the reasonable development aspirations of the local people
are addressed. Capitalizing on the customary land ownership, PNG
has tremendous potential for the promotion of land use patterns
that stress long term stewardship as a means of meeting these
aspirations.
A promising eco-timber industry is being developed in PNG. As an
alternative to industrial forestry which degrades the resource
upon which economic livelihoods depend, support of small-scale,
community based, ecologically sustainable forestry and other low
impact forest utilization may be the most effective manner to
conserve biological diversity and economic futures in PNG. NGOs
and landowners are joining together as practitioners of
eco-forestry (small, community based sawmilling under a strict
forest management plan) using 'wokabaut somils', small portable
sawmills. The light, portable sawmill can be carried into the
forests.
When a tree is to be harvested, it is felled with minimal
disturbance to the surrounding trees and then milled on the spot.
No roads and no heavy equipment are needed. Only some of the
trees over a certain girth are harvested. PNG can probably never
have enough preserved land in properly distributed reserves to
maintain viable populations of most endemic species. PNG's rugged
geography has resulted in a vast number of microhabitats. The
result was a radiation in species and cultural diversity in each
isolated valley. When vast tracts of relatively unpopulated
forest landscape currently exist, why presume that 90% must still
be cleared to arrive at what will then be preserved? Doesn't the
failure of large scale industrial forestry to bring long term
improvement in local people's way of life, while decimating local
biodiversity, beg for a more farsighted development strategy?
While the goal of establishing National Parks and other preserves
is laudable, viable management systems for natural forests must
be found.
2.2 Wokabout Sawmills
Wokabout Sawmills and other small, portable mills are among the
best tools in the world for "sensitive harvesting of
trees" (Seed 1993). They cause less environmental
destruction than multi-national loggers and ensure local people
get better financial benefits. Seed (1993) estimates that a
maximum of 200 new wokabaut somil operations would need to be
established to exclude large scale industrial logging from all
vulnerable areas of PNG. Ecoforestry efforts using portable
sawmills will only be as successful as their management plans are
scientifically rigorous. These management plans generally allow
careful logging on 1000 acres (about 20 acres a year over a
50-year rotation) leaving the vast majority of the land
untouched. Once the tree is felled, the sawmill is assembled over
the trunk, and the tree sawn into planks. The small clearing is
rehabilitated and seedlings of the species taken are planted.
Future timber trees are identified, staked, and mulched with
sawdust. The number of cut trees per hectare is strictly limited,
so there will be little more damage than would occur naturally
and be repaired through gap dynamics (Seed 1994). There is a
pressing need to experiment with regeneration in a variety of
alternate management plans with varying harvest intensities, gap
sizes, and levels of mechanization.
We have detailed the extensive forest clearing occurring across
Irian Jaya, Indonesia, PNG, and the Solomon Islands. Recent
advances in ecotimber harvesting schemes have also been noted.
The problem and solution have been identified.
The internet and other technologies offer great potential to
communicate internationally and locally, to bring about a
solution to this decline in ecosystem functionality. Ecological
Enterprises' Internet Forest Networking Project has been actively
organizing individuals and communities for six years, with email
bulletins posted to conservationists, government employees,
academics -- getting ecological facts and figures into the hands
of people who are willing to make a difference.
Conservation materials have also been widely distributed on APC's
networks (greennet, pegasus, econet) and their rich
environmentally-orientated bulletin boards. These efforts have
recently intensified with the construction of Gaia Forest
Archives home page accessible through the World Wide Web and
gopher systems.
In order to address the clearly unacceptable destruction of the
vast majority of South Pacific forest ecosystem, we have
developed informational campaign strategies which seek to:
1. Organize local forest conservation information in a systematic
manner to serve the needs of community development and
empowerment work in PNG in particular, and in a less detailed
manner, the world at large. This involves the collection,
selection, compilation, sorting and dissemination of information;
2. Act as support and contact center for community actions and
campaigns;
3. Act as intermediary for receiving and disseminating
information;
4. Provide consultation and services to the community and
community-based organizations in PNG in particular, and the world
in general;
5. Demonstrate to other environmental campaigners how information
technologies can be used to network ecological information. The
internet has provided the core tool, the development of cheap and
rapid communication between forest peoples and those living in
Northern countries. Such communication presents two obstacles,
technical aspects and cultural differences.
The author has maintained a steady stream of information out of
PNG to the international conservation movement concerning forest
legislation, policy, specific forest negotiations, and local
environmental campaigns. As early as 1989, we were putting out
information from PNG on the internet. At first this was utilized
primarily for fund raising, group writing and campaign
coordination of core PNG rainforest activists around the world.
Only occasionally were items systematically addressed to the
larger public.
Then in 1991, while volunteering with the Rainforest Information
Centre in Australia as the New Guinea Islands Campaign Director,
I began to type in PNG conservation newspaper articles, NGO
informational releases, and other items for a small private
conference that was once again addressed primarily to a small
group of dedicated activists. This was largely because at this
time it was unclear whether this type of material was too
"radical" for mainstream viewing; and because expensive
gateways charges apply when econet emails are sent to people on
other email networks.
Econet is part of the APC networks, the largest assembly of
on-line environmental information and activists, which connects
17,000 activists in 94 countries. For further information on
EcoNet membership, a nonprofit online system, send a message to
As the private conference png.campaign within the econet
conference continued to grow, it soon became clear that any
advantages to a "private" bulletin board were being
lost as individuals whom the core campaigners did not know
personally, scattered throughout the globe, were added to the
permissions list. At this time the content of our postings
changed from primarily campaign coordination to the presentation
of materials that would broaden and deepen the movement. Rather
than thinking that half a dozen extremely dedicated individuals
were going to save the forests single-handedly, additional
emphasis was placed on interesting and recruiting new activists.
"Rather than thinking that half a dozen extremely dedicated individuals were going to save the forests single-handedly, additional emphasis was placed on interesting and recruiting new activists"
Since late 1991, basically all materials that have run in the
PNG print media concerning rainforest conservation efforts have
been made digital and indexed. In 1993 we acquired a piece of
hardware called a scanner and a class of computer software known
as Object Character Recognition (OCR) which allows clear hard
copies to have their text moved directly into a word processor
where it can then be edited, put in a newsletter, or printed. It
can also be posted to email list subscribers and to the econet
conference < reg.newguinea >.
In mid 1993 we started getting more familiar with the internet,
of which econet is but one domain; and realized that anyone
without a paid membership in econet was not getting our
information.
These early internet forest conservation efforts have continued,
and branched out to become involved in the conservation struggles
of various communities whose internet appeals are being collected
from numerous sources for indexing, distribution and archiving.
As well as econet's bulletin boards, many usenet conferences,
list server discussions, and World Wide Web and Gopher databases
all are inputs into what we eventually circulate and archive.
Ensuring local struggles' conservation data is collated and
distributed widely is crucial at this junction as pro-industrial
logging governments and businesses have increased their
propaganda machines worldwide (with their relatively unlimited
resources) to counter and try to discredit the support of the
global community for indigenous people's struggles.
E-mail is a way by which messages can be sent from one computer
to another anywhere in the world through telephone lines. It is
cheaper than phone or fax and correspondences can be captured
onto the computer which greatly facilitates networking and the
distribution. Email has allowed cheap and rapid communication
between forest peoples and those living in Northern countries.
As Brown (1994) points out, "electronic mail has become a
vital tool for those who work on environmental and social issues.
Thousands of activists and organizations around the world are now
using computer networks to coordinate campaigns and exchange
news." Generally, document downloads of 250kb a day --about
200 articles -- are sifted through in order to find the 4 or 5
items a day which not only report events, but contain information
which would be useful for others wanting to become active in
support of good forest policy in a particular area. About 3 items
a week are sent to the Worldwide Forest/Biodiversity Campaign
News email list, really the best of the crop. About another two
dozen a week are uniformly formatted and put in our document
database in the Gaia Forest Archives, where any individual with
internet (gopher or World Wide Web) connection can access and
search them.
The other type of information we frequently network is reports,
documents, manuscripts from organizations and individuals. For
these items, we have been granted permission to network by the
authors and issuing organization. There are many dozens of groups
and individuals that regularly gather and send us press releases,
action alerts and various other information pieces. Most of the
information in the PNG section has been made available
electronically for the first time by our efforts.
4.1 PNG Rainforest Campaign News
Our "PNG Rainforest Campaign News," which now reaches
approximately 300 activists, academics and government officials,
provides very comprehensive coverage of efforts to conserve PNG's
rainforests, approximately 2 items a week ( send an email to <
grbarry@students.wisc.edu > to be added).
The PNG Rainforest Campaign contact database organizes
information for over 1,000 international supporters interested in
PNG rainforest protection; and for whom we research, write and
circulate a significant amount of information current, activist
oriented forest conservation information. We network PNG
newspapers' coverage of forest issues, local NGO backgrounders
and materials, and international NGO PNG rainforest information.
In addition, Ecological Enterprises typically writes a few press
releases and action alerts a month; pulling together recent
happenings from our other sources, and channelling public concern
within PNG and the World to pressure for conservation action.
Frequently we organize international actions, such as letter
writing campaigns, in support of local conservation appeals. Many
hundreds of environmental groups and individuals, including most
major forest campaign organizations, depend upon Ecological
Enterprises for a portion of their forest conservation
information. National Geographic Magazine, the New York
Times, EF! Journal, Rainforest Information Centre's World
Rainforest Report (many times - ed.) and Rainforest Action
Network's World Rainforest Report and numerous newspapers
around the world (including many in PNG) have recently utilized
our data and analysis for articles on the forest situation in
PNG.
What is original here, is that 500 people in communities all over
the world are finding out about conservation issues days or weeks
after it is happening (where it used to be months or years -- if
ever).
4.2 Worldwide Forest/Biodiversity Campaign News
Our PNG Rainforest conservation network lead us to spend much
time on the internet, posting and viewing many forest forums. We
soon came to realize that a tremendous amount of worldwide
conservation material was languishing on infrequently visited
bulletin boards. We decided to diversify from our PNG interests
and establish a network of activists, academics and public
servants interested in biodiversity and forests issues in
general. Hence, the "Worldwide Forest/Biodiversity Campaign
News" was hatched; as we began to amplify the best of forest
conservation appeals.
Worldwide Forest/Biodiversity Campaign News scans numerous
sources on the internet, including usenet discussion groups,
econet's bulletin boards, popular media and the press, and list
servers and other local forest conservation efforts similar to
our PNG Campaign, to provide wide-ranging coverage, on average 3
items a week, of the efforts to save the world's rainforests,
temperate forests, biodiversity and indigenous cultures. This
list is currently being distributed to 500+ academics and
activists around the world.
Recently, we have been following conservation efforts in Malaysia
(Sarawak), British Columbia (Clayoquot Sound), Guyana, and
numerous others ( send an email to <
grbarry@students.wisc.edu > to join). We have been
providing coverage on biodiversity decline across the globe,
amplifying local efforts to address the situation. We are
synthesizing down the networked information by individuals and
groups in order to maximize busy conservationists information
inflows. We synthesize out the few conservation gems which are
being circulated from the "noise" in many conservation
forums, serving the function of a filter.
Not every individual concerned about forest conservation issues
is able to spend 3-4 hours a day surfing the net finding
materials, and another 1-2 hours a day preparing them for
distribution, and another 1-2 hours in system design (most lately
setting up the archives, but many years of designing the mailing
list format, adding people, etc.). Much thought has been put into
the format and frequency of postings. Through repeated changes we
have decided that titles that capture the essence of the piece
and well written summaries before the whole item's text are
crucial in allowing list recipients to quickly gauge what items
are of interest.
4.3 Gaia1 Forest Archives
In addition to these two email lists, archives of materials,
constituting thousands of informational pieces, have been made
available on the internet through the establishment of the Gaia1
internet server. The archives, entitled the Gaia Forest Archives
(check it out at URL =
http://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu/research/pngfores ), provide a
range of materials concerning rainforest and biodiversity.
Materials have been made of uniform format, titled, indexed and
presented graphically in order to make this material available to
individuals that want to become more active in the rainforest
movement; and need to familiarize themselves with forest and
biodiversity protection issues in a particular country.
Data logs of the number of people accessing the informational
archives have been gathered since its establishment. This data
shows that as the information becomes more known and linked, and
thus accessible, that information utilization is increasing
dramatically. In just over 6 weeks, we went from having no
accesses to one hundred a day. Potentially, our ability to
influence the worldwide system upscale has increased
dramatically, as recent weeks have seen a dramatic increase in
the numbers of people viewing these materials. The home page has
been hit now some 25,000 times over an 8 month period, during
which time 70,000 documents were downloaded.
Given the systems nature of society and the ideas which are put
before the public, the degree to which this forest advocacy
program is successful will depend on whether accurate, well
targeted information flows percolate through the system; ideally
becoming the dominant paradigm, and leading to more actual
conservation, ecological management and restoration of forests
where they have historically occurred.
The discipline of Conservation Biology pays insufficient
attention to the need to better identify sociologically,
politically, economically and ecologically how the the drastic
lifestyle changes necessary to pull human society into
sustainability can be attained. Continued presence of forested
landscapes through preservation of all remaining primary forest
and immediate attempts to restore forest cover where it has
historically occurred is essential to insure that the ecological
roles of forests and their biological diversity remains intact.
The Forest Networking project works primarily at the Worldwide
scale, hierarchically, as only the internet can make possible;
with a nested PNG informational campaign at a lower scale.
Increasingly, we are seeing many other local groups spring up to
gather and network conservation information on a particular
country or forest. International support is crucial if PNG's, and
these other conservation efforts, are to have a chance of
success.
Modern computers allow the tremendous ability to send thousands
of messages to every corner of the world. Many newbies, or people
recently experimenting with the internet, respond to such power
through indiscriminate sending of information, but just being
able to send signals faster and in more quantity does not make
for a more connected system. Information must be going to people
who are willing and able to make a conservation statement through
their actions.
If the goal of this forest awareness is to have the forest land
conservation ethos become the norm (the dominant paradigm),
critical system connections need to be identified and linked. We
have begun to address the lack of dispersal of information
pertaining to local forest conservation efforts through the
filtering, targeting and distribution of vast quantities of
forest and biodiversity conservation advocacy materials. We have
done this without ever flooding anonymous people with
information. Instead, we started small and identified people who
wanted the information. Both lists average half a dozen new
subscribers a week. "Both the number of host computers and
the volume of information flowing through the system are
estimated to be doubling every five months (Brown, 1994)".
Many types of individuals receive these unabashedly activist
writs every week.
Virtually all major forest campaign groups worldwide, the foreign
service desk officer for PNG from the US and Australia, the head
of FAO's forest branch, World Bank, State Department officials,
numerous academics (particularly a substantial anthropologist
network) -- all are receiving and acting upon the same
information. Virtually all major forest groups worldwide, the
FAO's forest branch, World Bank, State Department officials,
numerous academics all receive and act upon our information.
We have seen numerous interesting feedbacks as a result. As the
forest and biodiversity advocacy has progressed, numerous
feedbacks and patterns of information flows and impact have been
developing. We also show how the individual, and small groups,
can have a huge impact. Such an individual can be viewed as a
transmitting holon in a systems biology sense. New information
technologies allow a well informed individual the ability to
package and disseminate information, that is send signals to
other parts of the worldwide system, in previously unimagined
quantity, speed, targeted accuracy, and quality. We can continue
this systems analogy by envisioning information flows through the
world as being received by individuals which are receiving
holons.
Successful advocacy depends upon identifying from the whole set
of holons (the world's population) the subset that is concerned
enough with these issues (or likely to become so if provided with
the necessary information) that they are willing to become
transmitting holons; or otherwise active conservationists. And
further, targeted receiving holons should be in a position to
make a difference. Success is measured by the extent to which
forest conservation percolates through the total human controlled
system; a component of the larger system, Gaia, and becomes the
prevalent ethos. Many biological systems depend upon
informational signals, be they chemical or ecological, to remain
intact.
Having experimented with rainforests appeals and informational
exchange via the internet for some time, we have slowly, and
through trial and error, identified key concepts that are
important for our methodology and that are communicated to
recipients of our forest alerts. It is critical the essential
user understandings be established immediately with the hundreds
of people who allow their mailboxes to be flooded with email
appeals.
This informational service is free. All we ask of list recipients
is that they try to contribute an item or two to the list when
possible. Recipients can send items through email to us to be
distributed, or you can send a high quality hard copy to us to
scan into digital format. We network numerous public domain
items, which we scan in from hardcopy and/or find posted around
the internet. These include newspapers, magazines and other
public domain sources. These items, we stress, are to be viewed
as photocopies. Recipients are encouraged to use them as a
resource in their own work, be it academic or activist, keeping
in mind we are just passing items along as is--we are
"amplifying" these stories, and thus acting as a
messenger. If you want to actually publish the item, in contrast
to our "photocopying", recipients need to approach the
source listed for permission.
This is all put forth in an email sent to new list recipients,
and in the disclaimer accompanying each item. We are not doing
this for profit or commercial reasons, but rather out of a deep
love for all natural things and distress over the vast
destruction being wrought on rainforests, biodiversity and
indigenous cultures in PNG and other tropical and temperate
forested areas. We are bearing witness to what is happening to
biodiversity worldwide.
Once the recipients of the list receive the information, they
must decide what to do once they have become aware--hopefully
deciding to act upon their knowledge, and take responsibility for
doing so. During my tenure with the Institute for Environmental
Studies' computer lab, I was instrumental in the actual design,
and configuration of this Gaia1 server. In addition to basic UNIX
installation, this included gathering different modules which
provide different internet server functionality. We had to
install Gopher software, World Wide Web software, and Swish
Indexing software to provide the core functionality of these
hybrid gopher/WWW indexed databases of forest conservation
documents.
By far the easiest way to get a WWW page up is having an in at a
University which has the big, fast links to the internet to serve
all the hits that will come in. WWW documents are in hypertext,
which is really just a very simplified wordprocessing sort of
language with simple control characters (remember wordstar?).
There are a number of $10 books with simple style suggestions (ie
how to boldface, etc.).
There seem to be two approaches to getting a web site going; one
is to make it really flashy but little substance, and the other
is to first work on having something of worth when people stumble
in. I chose the latter and only recently have added the flash.
The page should load quickly (not be too big).
There are starting to be a vast number of choices for people to
commercially subscribe to internet services. The big ones in the
US, such as Compuserve and America online are now offering
internet connectivity. Most people can get lots of internet time
for say $20 a month. Increasingly commercial providers for making
your own web page available on the internet are springing up.
Then all that is necessary to get your message across is writing
the hypertext documents in a wordprocessor.
PNG's forests, as an intact landscape bound by evolutionary
history and ecological singularity, will be gone within ten years
if current logging continues. In 1993, log export levels
increased by four times in a single year (Henderson 1993) and
more recent import figures (Saturday Independent 1995)
show logging appears to have slowed its rate of growth, but is
still growing while being well above the generally accepted
sustainable yields. Conservation needs to occur now, or we will
lose this startling display of evolutionary diversification
forever.
Inserting what we already know about ecology and biological
diversity into land use decisions is essential if a transition to
sustainable livelihoods is to occur in PNG, and also in the
already overdeveloped world.
References
Alcorn, Janis B. 1993. "PNG Conservation Needs
Assessment". The Biodiversity Support Program,
Washington, D.C.
Aplet, Gregory H.; Johnson, Nels; Olson, Jeffrey T., and Sample,
V. Alaric (eds.) 1993. Defining Sustainable Forestry.
Island Press, Washington, D. C.
Brown, Lester. (ed.) 1994. State of the World. Chapter 6,
"Using Computers for the Environment." W. W. Norton
& Company, New York.
Grumbine, R. Edward. 1994. "What is Ecosystem
Management?", Conservation Biology. 8(1): 27-38.
Hartshorn, Gary S. 1990. "An Overview of Neotropical Forest
Dynamics." Four Neotropical Rainforests. Yale
University Press, New Haven and London: 585-599.
Henderson, Max. 1993. Ol Draipela Diwai I Lus Pinis. PNG
NGO report.
Lamb, D. 1977, "Conservation and Management of Tropical
Rainforest: A Dilemma of Development in PNG", Environmental
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Leslie, A.J. 1977. "Where contradictory theory and practice
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Primack, Richard B. 1993. Essentials of Conservation Biology.
Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusett.
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Rohlf, Danial J. 1991. "Six Biological Reasons Why the
Endangered Species Act Doesn't Work--And What to Do About
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Salzman, J.E. 1989. "Scientists as advocates: the Point
Reyes Bird Observatory and gill netting in central
California". Conservation Biology 3(2):170-180.
Seed, John. 1990-95. Personal communications, emails.
Wilson, E.O.1988. Biodiversity. National Academy Press,
Washington,D.C
Wilson, E.O.1992. The Diversity of Life. The Belknap
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