Efforts to save animals from extinction will fail unless human poverty is tackled as a part of conservation strategies, one of Britain’s leading environmental scientists has said. “Effective conservation of the earth’s biological riches will not happen without sustainable development and greater equity in the distribution of wealth and resources across all nations,” John Lawton, head of the UK National Environment Research Council told a group of industrialists and environmentalists at the Gerald Durrell Lecture 2002 in London.