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Conservation and Management
The tropics receive a lot of attention when it comes to conservation and management due to increased public awareness of the significance of tropical ecosystems and the delicacy with which they much be treated. The rainforests are subjects of heightened attention due to the excessive deforestation and logging that occurs in those ecosystems. In the 1980's, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization conducted a study that concluded that 15.4 million hectares (100 acres) of tropical forest was per year. In addition, 5.6 million hectares were logged each year. This landmark study sparked widespread interest in the tropical ecosystem, and a great number of non-profits and outspoken ecologists engaged in an extended fight to "save the rainforest" that continues today. This battle has manifested itself in a number of ways, one of which is the outcropping of biodiversity institutes in tropical locations dedicated to stopping the excessive deforestation of the landscape, one of the most notable of which was established in Costa Rica. The work of Costa Rica's National Biodiversity Institute has served as a model for other biodiversity institutes. First, it must be noted that rainforests harbor the most alkaloid-producing plants of any biome; alkaloids are compounds that are crucial to the production of Western drugs. Due to the abundance of these compounds, pharmaceutical companies all over the world look to the rainforests for new medicinal treatments. In the early 1990's, the heads of the National Biodiversity Institute in Costa Rica signed a deal with the pharmaceutical behemoth Merck that called for cooperation between the two entities in discovering and exploring new natural treatments in the Costa Rican rainforests. Ecologists, government officials, and corporations alike praised this decision as decisive progress in an ongoing struggle to work cooperatively in utilizing tropical biodiversity while ensuring the stability of tropical ecosystems.