We contend that humans, as living organisms, evolved to sequester resources to maximize reproductive success, and that many basic aspects of human behaviour reflect this evolutionary history. Much of the environment with which we currently deal is evolutionarily novel, and much behaviour which is ultimately not in our own interests, persists in this novel environment. Environmentalists frequently stress the need for ‘sustainable development’, however it is defined (see Redclift, 1987), and we contend that a knowledge of how humans are likely to behave with regard to resource use, and therefore a knowledge of what kinds of programmes are likely to work in any particular situation, is necessary to achieve sustainability. Specifically, we predict that issues which are short-term, local, and/or acute, such as an immediate health-risk, will be much easier to solve than issues which are broad, and which affect individuals other than ourselves, our relatives, and our friends. The bigger the issue is, the less effective is likely to be the response. Hence, the biggest and most troublesome ecological issues will be the most difficult to solve — inter alia because of our evolutionary history as outlined above.

This may not appear to bode well for the future of the world; for example, Molte (1988) contends that there are several hundred international environmental agreements in place, but Carroll (1988) contends that, in general, none of them is particularly effective if the criterion for effectiveness is a real solution to the problem. There are countless examples of ‘aggressors’ (those nations causing the problem) not complying with an agreement, slowing its ratification, or reducing its effectiveness (e.g. the US versus Canada, or Great Britain versus Sweden, with regard to acid rain legislation: Fig. 1, cf. Bjorkbom, 1988). The main problem in these cases is that the costs are externalized and hence discounted by those receiving the benefits of being able to pollute. Any proposed change is bound to conflict with existing social structures, and negotiations necessarily involve compromise in a quid pro quo fashion (Brewer, 1980). We contend, along with Caldwell (1988) and Putnam (1988), that nations are much too large to think of as individual actors in these spheres. Interest groups within nations can affect ratification of international environmental treaties; for example, automobile industry interests versus those of environmental NGOs in the USA on the acid rain issue. It may even be that our evolutionary history is inimical to the entire concept of the modern nation state.

Barring major, global, socio-political upheaval, we suggest that a knowledge of the evolution of resource use by humans can be used to solve at least some resource-related problems in modern industrial societies. In some cases, these can probably be solved with information alone, and in other cases, the problems can probably be solved by playing on our evolutionary history as social reciprocators; environmental problems which tend to be relatively local and short-term may be solvable in these ways. Economic incentives can provide solutions to many other types of problems by manipulating the cost and benefits to individuals. We suggest that broader, large-scale environmental problems are much more difficult to solve than narrower, small-scale ones, precisely because humans have evolved to discount such themes; stringent regulations and the formation of coalitions, combined with economic incentives to use alternatives and economic disincentives (fines) not to do so, may be the only potential solutions to some major, transboundary environmental issues.

In preparing this argument, we have reviewed literature from many scholarly fields well outside the narrow scope of our expertise in behavioural ecology and wildlife conservation. Our reading of many works from anthropology, economics, political science, public policy, and international development, will doubtless seem naïve and simplistic to practitioners of those fields, and solving all environmental problems will ultimately take expertise from all of these fields and more. In general, however, we have found agreement for many of our ideas from these disparate disciplines, but much of their literature does not allow for a rigorous, quantitative hypothesis-testing approach to analysing the main thesis presented here — an approach that we, as scientists, would encourage. We hope to challenge people interested in environmental issues from many perspectives, to consider our arguments and find evidence, pro or con, so that we (collectively) may come closer to a better analysis of, and ultimately to solutions for, our most pressing environmental problems.

The reasons which recently forced the World Bank into environmental improvements are discussed, so that other financial institutions can profit from this experience. The reasons include due recognition that environmental abuse is constraining economic development, that environmental damage has now assumed massive proportions, and that such abuse is intensifying. The electorates of the World Bank's industrial shareholding nations began to pressure their representatives. Advocates of the poor, and of people affected by environmentally-bungled development projects, joined forces with environmental NGOs and added to the pressure for environmental reform.

The World Bank's positive response led to a series of major institutional, procedural, and policy, reforms, which are provided as examples and suggestions to other financial bodies that need or at least desire to improve their environmental stance. The Bank's environmental policies are outlined, and the most powerful — Environmental Impact Assessment — is treated in detail.

Based on this experience, the environmental opportunities available to other financiers are discussed. The case is presented that financiers becoming environmentally prudent in the ways suggested will out-compete their environmentally imprudent colleagues. The latter will go bust or be prosecuted. The paper ends with a rich menu of ideas through prosecution of which environmental responsibility can be sought by financiers.

In some developing countries there is a call to open-up protected areas and even National Parks for low-intensity use by the local population to alleviate the pressure of the rapidly increasing human population, or because conservationists have been able to ‘take’ too much land according to others. This conflict in land-use has been noted by conservation authorities, and proposals have been formulated to give way to such pressure. Moreover, it has been suggested that there can be a harmonious coexistence between wildlife and livestock, so that opening-up of protected areas would not necessarily be to the detriment of wildlife, and also that the indigenous populations were able to manage wildlife and their habitats in the past (so why not again in the future). The last point in the concerted attack on the status of the protected areas is that ‘conservation is an alien concept in Third World countries’.

In this paper is reviewed the question as to whether there ever has been such a harmonious coexistence between wildlife and pastoral Man in East Africa, and aerial census data from a number of districts in Tanzania and Kenya have been used to demonstrate that livestock outcompetes wildlife. At present ‘prestige overstocking’ is not the case any more, due to the fact that the human population outgrows the livestock population. Apparently, a very high rate of population growth is at the root of the call for more land, and even if, for example, the whole of the Serengeti were to be handed over to the local Masai, this enormous, relatively undisturbed ecocomplex could absorb the growth of the Masai population for only some forty years.

Finding the key to increased development should not be sought in an opening-up of protected areas but in payment of in absentia benefits by the rich western countries. This money should be used for developing programmes aimed at population limitation, increased income for the rural poor, and increased sustainable human densities in areas outside the protected areas.