The Problem:
Concern about loss of habitats of species and the depletion of natural resources is widespread. This concern about environment does not always seem to translate into significant progress towards conservation. Everyone talks about these issues, but no one does anything about them. Modern environmentalism has failed to address the underlying causes of environmental degradation.

In Economics we learn that nothing is "free". Every product, service and function has a monetary value. Every lost opportunity has a cost. If we do not pay from our pocket, someone else will. When compared to the economic returns a society gets from converting a natural resource into a commercial product, there is no motivation for conservation. As a result, coastlines are replaced by beach resorts and tropical forests give way to croplands. In each case people believe that they would be better off by giving up a natural asset.

Look at water as a resource. If safe drinking water is scarce, those who can afford will pay the price for a bottle of water. This type of choice is not readily available when it comes to air. On my recent trip to Bombay I did not realize that I was breathing a thick soup of dirty air, laced with soot, until I came back to the hotel and wiped my face with a towel. Because we do not, and cannot, buy and sell clean air, the value of loss of clean air is perceived to be zero. We subsidize water and power used for irrigation, but nobody dares talking about subsidizing a bicylist who willingly forgoes the option of using a car in Bombay with the intention of keeping its air clean. As long as the playing field is not level, but tilted in favor of economic development, conservation loses.

No one is arguing that a country like India should shelve economic development in favor of conservation. Whatever economic development a country achieves rings hollow as long as it cannot provide clean air, clean water and a healthful environment to its growing masses. How can one achieve both?

Two things are necessary to reach these twin goals. First, one has to recognize that ecosystems have economic value. Second, a way has to be found to "capture" the latent non-market value and turn it into tangible benefits for those who practice conservation. That is, it is necessary to make conservation pay and demonstrate the benefits in the most visible way. This is what is called "demonstration-capture" paradigm.

Central to the demonstration-capture paradigm is the concept of "paying" for a "service", just like we are beginning to accept the concept of paying for clean bottled water.

Eco Foundation
To help address these issues some in the United States launched a non-profit foundation. The goal of this foundation is to cultivate ecological awareness among masses by focusing on the educational, cultural and organizational dimensions of the problem. Specifically, the foundation proposes to:

• Promote Tropical Biodiversity toward discovery of new and novel drugs for life-threatening diseases like AIDS, heart attack, stroke and diabetes.
• Help conduct field research/surveys for the identification, cataloguing, and archiving information of plant and animal species and their natural products with promising pharmaceutical and therapeutic values, leading to the possible discovery of important drugs.
• Encourage research activities on agricultural ecosystems and human ecology of agriculutural communities. To help conduct research on agricultural ecosystems with special emphasis on human ecology pertinent to extensive usage of agrochemicals (pesticides, insecticides, herbicides) leading to pollution problems in tropical agroecosystems, especially, India.

The Process
The process of achieving these goals starts at the grassroots and moves upwards: from the village to the city, from the farm to the forest and from social regression to social evolution. The Foundation proposes to educate the masses

As any policy based on one's willingness to pay is tilted in favor of those who can afford, there is an important difference between "voting" in a market place and voting in an election.