"But it's amazing that we still have some incredible biodiversity which is worth saving".
"But in the process, you're losing biodiversity, which is a big problem," said Eakin.
But environmentalists say that it threatens local biodiversity, which will be "drowned to satisfy the needs of the capitalist economy".
If the dams are built, tropical freshwater biodiversity, which is at its most diverse in the three river basins, could be devastated, say the authors.
The debates focused on the "commons", such as water and biodiversity, which continue to be appropriated by multinationals, undermining the food sovereignty of the people.
Participants from 192 countries have gathered to confront the challenge of saving the world's biodiversity, which is disappearing faster than ever before.
Some people believe that any water left in the river is wasted water, he said, but ultimately the Colorado supports biodiversity, which in turn supports human beings.
Armed with chainsaws, they are the bogeymen typically blamed for doing away with not only our forests, but also the biodiversity which inhabits them.
Other objections are over the effect of GM on biodiversity – which is equivocal and more research is needed– and over fears that the new genes will leak out into the wild with unforeseen consequences.
The ecosystems and biodiversity which underpin all economic activity depend largely on 'wild land' - very much a poor relation in the competition with agriculture and urbanisation, both of which have massive economic forces in their favour.
After intense negotiations at the 11th convention on biodiversity, which came to a close early on Saturday in Hyderabad, rich countries finally agreed to double their contributions to conservation projects by 2015.
