BIODIVERSITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS, Transnational Publishers Inc., New York 2002, p. 204.
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ELLI LOUKA, Lecturer of the Pantion University
Τετάρτη 1 Μαΐου 2002
This study proposes a fundamental review of the international biodiversity protection policies. Instead of conservation, this study shifts attention to ecosystem management with human dignity at the center of biodiversity protection. The human rights violation that conservation often entails have been reported in previous studies on biodiversity that have centered on the evolution of ecosystems and recommended that the needs of people who live close to protected areas must be taken into account when designing conservation policies. Without formal requirements and standards, though, such recommendations have fallen on deaf ears. This study establishes human rights standards as threshold for biodiversity protection, and by doing so it formalizes the requirement that human needs and aspirations must be incorporated into conservation policies. This study goes a step further: it recommends that conservation policies should not be adopted unless basic human rights requirements are satisfied.