Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Do we really care about biodiversity?
- Part I Causes of biodiversity loss
- Part II The value of biodiversity
- Part III Policies for biodiversity conservation
- 14 Auctioning biodiversity conservation contracts: an empirical analysis
- 15 An evolutionary institutional approach to the economics of bioprospecting
- 16 An ecological-economic programming approach to modelling landscape-level biodiversity conservation
- 17 The effectiveness of centralised and decentralised institutions in managing biodiversity: lessons from economic experiments
- 18 Conserving species in a working landscape: land use with biological and economic objectives
- 19 Balancing recreation and wildlife conservation of charismatic species
- 20 Modelling the recolonisation of native species
- Part IV Managing agro-biodiversity: causes, values and policies
- Index
- References
17 - The effectiveness of centralised and decentralised institutions in managing biodiversity: lessons from economic experiments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2009
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Do we really care about biodiversity?
- Part I Causes of biodiversity loss
- Part II The value of biodiversity
- Part III Policies for biodiversity conservation
- 14 Auctioning biodiversity conservation contracts: an empirical analysis
- 15 An evolutionary institutional approach to the economics of bioprospecting
- 16 An ecological-economic programming approach to modelling landscape-level biodiversity conservation
- 17 The effectiveness of centralised and decentralised institutions in managing biodiversity: lessons from economic experiments
- 18 Conserving species in a working landscape: land use with biological and economic objectives
- 19 Balancing recreation and wildlife conservation of charismatic species
- 20 Modelling the recolonisation of native species
- Part IV Managing agro-biodiversity: causes, values and policies
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The world's stock of biodiversity is declining at an alarming rate: species are thought to be going extinct at rates unprecedented in the history of mankind. To the extent that species have an intrinsic value, biodiversity decline constitutes a welfare loss, but also because of the resulting decrease in the world's stock of genetic material. Opinions differ with respect to the actual rate of extinction as well as with respect to how costly it is for society when species disappear. But the fact remains that many governments nowadays implement policies specifically aimed at conserving individual species as well as species diversity in general, which suggests that there is widespread consensus about the urgency of protecting biodiversity.
The main direct threats to biodiversity conservation are excessive harvesting of specific species and habitat destruction (see Reid and Miller 1989). A common feature of these two types of threats is that there is little incentive for individual agents to take into consideration the impact of their (economic) activities on species conservation. In many instances, property rights with respect to the use of natural resources are either simply lacking or not well enforced. Hence, agents who invest in larger future stocks of a particular species or resource – by reducing current extraction – cannot claim an exclusive right to the future benefits of their investment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Biodiversity EconomicsPrinciples, Methods and Applications, pp. 479 - 500Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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