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Correspondence

Nature 440, 868 (13 April 2006) | doi:10.1038/440868d; Published online 12 April 2006

Local people may be the best allies in conservation

Douglas Sheil1,2 & Manuel Boissière1,3

  1. Center for International Forestry Research, PO Box 6596 JKPWB, Jakarta 10065, Indonesia
  2. Forest Ecology and Forest Management, Wageningen University, PO Box 47, 700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
  3. Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, Campus de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

We, like many, have been excited by the discovery of new animal and plant species in West Papua's Foja Mountains. Although we are not against granting the area official protection status, as discussed in your News story "Calls to conserve biodiversity hotspots" (Nature,  439, 774; 2006), we warn against imposing such schemes on local people.

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