Bio-rights: what to think of them?

from Merijn Knibbe

Many commentors on this blog show an interest in markets, debts, multi dimensional sustainable development, land and land taxes. These subjects all seem to come together in bio-rights, a kind of financing based upon ownership rights of communities of ecological values and which, when a project is succesful, redeemes debt. It seems to work at least some of the time, though success is also based upon technology, education, secure ownership of land and decentralized government. What to think of this:

NGOs in the conservation and development sector and governments alike have faced great difficulties in their efforts to reconcile conservation and development activities. Although the intricate linkage between poverty and environmental degradation is widely acknowledged, interactions between both fields have proved highly complex and difficult to conceptualise. As a result, past approaches to linking conservation and development, such as Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs), have met with limited success. Considering these difficulties, many conservationists and development workers have called for innovative approaches that build on the lessons learnt from the past, avoiding the weaknesses of earlier initiatives. In parallel, there has been increased momentum for the development of marketdriven instruments to aid conservation efforts. Such mechanisms internalise the economic value of ecosystem services into markets. This can generate significant funding for environmental conservation and allows for the development of trading systems in which resource users provide payments to resource owners in return for the sustained provision of certain goods and services.

The Bio-rights financial mechanism has been established by Wetlands International and Alterra (Wageningen University and Research Centre) in response to the above developments. Biorights provides micro-credits for sustainable development to local communities in return for community involvement in conservation. The loans are converted into definitive payments upon successful delivery of conservation services. The approach started as a small pilot scheme in coastal areas of central Java, involving poor fishermen in mangrove restoration in return for development support. Less than a decade later Bio-rights, has developed into a leading approach for reconciling conservation and development within Wetlands International’s major programmes. Currently a range of other organisations, including conservation and development NGOs as well as a micro-credit institution, have started implementing the approach. Demand from the private sector for sustainable resource management is also increasing and a number of major global initiatives linking sustainable development and conservation are underway. While many innovative financing mechanisms so far only exist on paper, the Bio-rights approach has proven successful and efficient in the field. Thus, Bio-rights is well-positioned to become a leading tool for linking conservation and development

Source. Additional information: a WWF tender