Sustainable forest management and conservation incentive agreements

Deforestation due to logging and land clearing for agriculture destroys in the order of 9 million ha of forest per year in the tropics, where the bulk of the world’s biodiversity is found. One response to this trend has been the pursuit of market mechanisms that reward environmentally compatible economic activity. Such mechanisms are under development in relation to a variety of environmental issues, such as greenhouse gas emissions, water rights, and the promotion of sustainable agricultural production methods. Mechanisms that address these issues often are assumed to have biodiversity conservation as an additional benefit. In a sense, then, a large portion of the global struggle to protect the world’s biodiversity heritage is reduced to initiatives that, hopefully, convey conservation benefits on the side.