The role of ecological science in addressing wetland conservation and management in the tropics

Abstract

With growing understanding of the importance of wetland ecosystems, has come increasing support for their conservation and sustainable utilization. Yet with the growing demand for wetland management has come greater appreciation of our limited understanding of the functioning of these ecosystems. This has in turn led to an upsurge of interest in wetlands research. Nevertheless, in a time of limited economic resources, the conservation community is increasingly asked to focus upon priorities and to channel funding towards these alone. This has led to more careful analyses of the pressures leading to wetland loss and the approaches that are needed to address these. This paper reviews these pressures and the mechanisms giving rise to them, and on the basis of this analysis examines research priorities in the 1990s.