This letter to Nature outlines argues against the idea that ecological criteria alone should be used to drive conservation strategies - a blueprint put forward by the non-governmental campaigning organisation, Conservation International.

Paul Jepson, a geographer at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, argues that fencing-off protected areas is not a people-friendly solution to conserving biodiversity. Based on data from Indonesia, he says that local communities are often resistant to the idea of protecting areas as 'hotspots' as they face losing homes and livelihoods if they are moved off land they have been occupying often for centuries.

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