ABSTRACT

Biodiversity conservation is frequently met with contradiction, with conservationists emphasizing preservation of what they view as pristine areas and social/development activists emphasizing the rights of local people to decide what to do with their land and natural resources. Such contradiction has led to a variety of bimodal controversies. A multidimensional way of approaching these issues is through the matrix quality model, envisioning landscapes as composed of natural habitat fragments in a matrix of agriculture. The overall conservation potential of the landscape will depend to a great degree on the nature of the agricultural matrix. A model framework is presented to illustrate the structure of this important issue, followed by a discussion on the problems associated with constructing a high quality matrix.