WASHINGTON--New programs, reports, legislation, and other activities are focusing attention on the study and preservation of the world's diverse species and habitats. "There's a rising tide," says Robert Jenkins, vice president for science at the Nature Conservancy. "Biodiversity has come to be the thing that we're all concerned with."
It's hard to imagine how a piece of technology used to speed shoppers through busy checkout lines could play a role in saving endangered species. "But barcodes sell biodiversity faster than any other thing you can think of," says Dan Janzen, an ecologist whose bent to treat biodiversity as a product has helped make Costa Rica's conservation efforts an international success story. Janzen's unorthodox methods require researchers to view biodiversity not as a science but rather as a marketing and business strategy. He sees Costa Rica, which is the size of West Virginia, as a 50,000-square-kilometer corporation. Its citizens are the ...
