ABSTRACT
Regulation by governments and inter-governmental agreements remains an important way of protecting biodiversity. Examples include the national laws which govern protected areas, currently covering more than 15% of the earth’s terrestrial surface, and the global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). But regulation is increasingly used in combination with alternative governance techniques and is not always desirable or sufficient. For example, blanket regulations to prevent farming in ecologically sensitive areas might be hard to enforce, might be impossible to obey in the absence of supporting measures, and might result in small farmers disproportionately bearing the costs of conservation. Similarly, rules that simply forbid access to a forest or marine reserve might not be reasonable where livelihoods and cultures are dependent on resources within that area. This chapter considers the opening up of conservation governance to include a wider range of approaches and, correspondingly, a wider set of actors which includes the private sector. This shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’ is nowhere more controversial than in its attempts to harness market forces for the advancement of conservation, often in tandem with government regulatory frameworks. For some this is a welcome move because it brings the private sector on board, prompts new sources of conservation funding, provides mechanisms for more efficient allocation of scarce funds, and ultimately meets a utilitarian goal to maximise conservation outcomes for humanity. For critics, however, this is a deeply flawed agenda which threatens to undermine more durable forms of caring for the environment and at the same time creates the conditions for further transfers of wealth and power from poor to rich.
