Over the last few decades, a new paradigm has emerged: Improving and protecting our environment is compatible with growing the Nation's economy. As part of this paradigm, we have come to recognize the essenitial linkage between the economy and the environment. We now understand that the sustainted bounty of our Nation's lands and waters and of its native plant and animal communities in the natural capital on which our economy is founded. We also realize that a sound forward-looking economic strategy requires that we protect this natural capital, rather than damage it and then spend millions or billions of dollars attempting to recreate what Nature has already given us. To protect our natural capital, our Nation's biodiversity and the ecosystems within which it thrives, we need to have an extensive and frequently updated environmental knowledge base. This knowledge base is required to evaluate alternative plans for managing biodiversity and ecosystems as we work to optimize the union between the environmental and the economy.

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