Defenders' Experts
Washington Marketplace: Conclusions
Buying, Selling and Trading Biodiversity in Washington
The direct ownership of natural resources by the government, as a sole conservation strategy, has become prohibitively expensive as land prices increase and financial resources decrease. In addition, the creation and implementation of new regulations to govern privately-owned natural resources meets with more hostility every year. By themselves, the isolated islands of public natural resources in Washington cannot preserve biodiversity over the long run. Market-based public policy is one way to promote the participation of private landowners in public conservation efforts. Such an approach is often perceived as less intrusive than more traditional alternatives. Mitigation and conservation banking, and payments for ecosystem services, conveniently represent two broad groups of market-based policies: voluntary and involuntary.
To encourage participation in a banking model, a bank must be the most attractive compliance option for landowners. To encourage participation in a "green payment" model, payments must be the most attractive economic option (more so than traditional agricultural, forest product, or development options that sometimes compete and sometimes compliment them). The first requires a narrower consideration of options by the landowners, most of which are under the direct control of the government. The second requires a broad consideration of all the options available, most of which lie outside the direct control of government. As a result, banks are easier to make strategic than payments for ecosystem services as they allow for more public control. However, the implementation of special districts could allow for all types of market-based policy to be used strategically for biodiversity conservation. They have the potential to provide the coordination and coherence necessary to align old and new policies around a single service, like biodiversity conservation, while being considerate of local concerns and broad state-established goals.
Appling the concepts of market-based policy comprehensively to biodiversity lacks national precedent. Attempting to establish such a precedent poses serious challenges. Foremost among them is proving that enough similarity exists between two places so that the destruction or degradation of one can be compensated by the rehabilitation of another (and that this compensation occurs in a way that preserves ecologically significant attributes). There are benefits and drawbacks to each type of market-based policy, many of which depend on the extent to which the public sector manages them. Some may argue that market-based policies are simply a temporary measure before the institution of more prescriptive regulation, like using the stacking of payments as way to preserve private resources until they become important enough to become public resources.
In the meantime, a new form of government that reflects local concerns related to biodiversity, with its boundaries determined by natural limits not political overlays, may be appropriate. Using special districts as an evaluation tool of the old, and an implementation tool of the new, may allow market forces to be harnessed to meet conservation goals. Yet, one should not lose track of the fact that market-based policies must be tailored carefully to ensure that desired public outcomes are tied directly to the desired outcomes of private companies. The nebulous nature of what biodiversity is, and how it is best represented, makes an alignment of personal benefit with public benefit difficult, and therefore limits the extent to which market-based policy may be used.
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References and works cited in this publication.
