China has an unprecedented opportunity to become an international leader in conservation. The world is concerned about the environment, but we lack strong global leadership and the ability to project forward. China has both vast natural resources and a burgeoning economy; with the highly commendable commitment of the central government to the environment and the opportunity to host a "Green" Olympics, China is poised to assume a world conservation leadership role.

Today, as never before, that leadership is critically important for the future of our planet.

The Earth is the only home we have, the single planet that supports human life. Yet we are failing to protect our home. We are overusing the natural resources that people and all living creatures depend on for survival: clean water, fresh air, food, medicines, raw materials, and other gifts of nature known as ecosystem services. Conservationists and scientists are well aware of the urgency. We see the destruction of biological diversity, air and water pollution, and depletion of resources on land and in the oceans.

However, the depletion of our environment is not only a conservation crisis but also an economic one, as critical ecosystem services become increasingly expensive to replace.

The impacts will be profound; our children and future generations will have far fewer options to create the kind of lifestyle we wish for them. More people will share fewer resources: in the next 50 years, the Earth's population is expected to double to between 10 and 12 billion. China, especially, faces a tremendous challenge due to its rapid growth and expanding economy. By the year 2030, it is estimated that China's energy demands will quadruple. Where will the energy come from? If it comes from the traditional burning of coal, oil and gas, what will the pollution impact be, the impact on people's lungs, on public health, and on global warming? How will we afford to replace the natural resources we exhaust?

We must build and support people's efforts in many countries to find their own solutions for conserving natural resources and protecting ecosystems. Every country that is blessed with natural wealth can easily be damaged by exploitation of natural resources without strict and thoughtful controls.

Finding solutions for conserving natural resources is especially important for China. China is the headwaters of the world, with many of the great rivers of Asia the Yangtze, the Yarlung Tsangpo, which flows into India as the Brahmaputra, the Lancang or the Mekong as it enters Southeast Asia, and the Nujiang, called the Salween in Myanmar and Thailand. Forty-seven per cent of the world's population lives in the area drained by these rivers.

We must develop a strategy to link what happens in coastal China with the health of the forests and rivers in the west, and conserve China's biologically valuable lands and waters. It is these Western headwaters and the ecosystems that surround them that provide the natural filter for China's rivers the lifeblood of the country.

China's powerful economy also makes it unique. As an emerging economic superpower, China is in the position to set standards that the world will have to meet. China can allow its resources to be plundered by outsiders, or it can establish standards for sustainable manufacturing and energy efficiency, creating a ripple effect that will spread throughout the world.

No nation is an island; we are all connected. China needs resources from the rest of the world just as its resources are required for the use of others. The way China extracts and uses its resources and thus demands that others extract and use their resources will have a huge effect on international economies. China can prove that there are better ways of doing business.

We must make knowledge available to the public and create leadership training so China's emerging leaders will be familiar with options for government policies to protect the environment.

Conservation success must be specific, such as new protected areas in the high biodiversity regions of the west, and in key ecological communities along the coast.

China can show the world the way by illustrating how we fish sustainably in the oceans, how we log in the forests, how we manufacture our material goods, and how we set a high standard to eliminate waste, pollution, and other threats to the Earth. We hope China will provide such guidance, and set the standard for the world.

One strategy is to engage corporations in China so that as they grow their businesses, they carefully assess their impacts on natural resources and determine how they can help sustain and protect China's natural wealth.

Another extremely important strategy is to support the local and national governments in developing the right policies to craft solutions that will endure for the long term.

As a leader, China will be able to share its solutions to improve energy and water efficiency, reduce resource waste, find better ways to develop fish farming, and other innovations. It is for China's leaders and people to find ways to take care of the landscape, the forests, the air, the water, and the soil.

The greatest gift China can offer to the world is to make use of the mighty engines of its enormous and rapid growth to steer the world towards the protection of the Earth.

Peace, prosperity, social stability, and public health are all directly linked to a healthy environment. People must understand that poisoned air not only hurts our lungs, but also can eventually kill us. Cutting down forests causes erosion that results in terrible landslides and deadly floods. Destroying coral reefs and mangrove forests for coastal development and shrimp farms removes natural defences against nature's fury, such as floods and tsunamis. People must understand things like eating wildlife can cause deadly diseases such as SARS.

All nations must understand that their future is in jeopardy. We must help the public realize the impact of environmental destruction in a way that resonates in the lives of people worldwide.

Aldo Leopold (1886-1948), a scientist and philosopher in the United States, wrote a small book called "A Sand County Almanac" (1948). In his book, he talked about biological diversity, about the species of life being the essential ingredients of complex ecosystems that support humankind. And he said that as every watchmaker knows, the first law of intelligent tinkering is to preserve all the pieces. You take apart the system, you lose a piece, and you cannot put the system back together.

With the upcoming 2008 "Green" Olympics in Beijing, China has the opportunity to take the reins as an international leader in sustainable development. The Olympics is an opportunity to publicly highlight China's dedication to conserving the environment within the modern economic system.

This is an easy calculation to make; if we preserve nature's ecosystems then we can sustain an Earth that supports life as we know it.