The World Conservation Strategy (WCS): Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development is contained in a report published in 1980 and prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (now called IUCN—The World Conservation Union). Assistance and collaboration was received from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The three main objectives of the WCS are: (1) to maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems on which human survival and development depend. Items of concern include soil regeneration and protection, the recycling of nutrients, and protection of water quality; (2) to preserve genetic diversity on which depend the functioning of many of the above processes and life-support systems, the breeding programs necessary for the protection and improvement of cultivated...