Questioning rent for development swaps: new marketbased instruments for biodiversity acquisition and the land-use issue in tropical countries
Amongst the market-based instruments designed to protect biodiversity, some directly target acquisition of land-use rights to turn natural forests into conservation areas and protect them against destructive activities such as logging or agricultural conversion. Whereas some instruments,
such as Transferable Development Rights and Conservation Easements, require the privatisation of land, conservation concessions are based on financial compensations to the state, logging companies and local populations against their rights to develop these lands. This principle of rent for
development swaps embodied in three instruments designed for buying back land use rights must be discussed according to efficiency and equity criteria. Four issues are critical in this respect: the property rights structure, prevailing local representations, the size of the area concerned
and existing institutional arrangements regarding forest resource access cost. This paper suggests that the opportunity cost of setting up large scale conservation concessions is much higher than generally suggested, especially in countries which have moved away from former discretionary allocation
practices and have reformed their forest sector regulation framework according to prominent donors' recommendations. It concludes that using the so-called lower cost of conservation in poorest countries, which makes large scale operation affordable for conservation investors, also raises ethical
issues, since this means compensating stakeholders at their current poverty level.
Keywords: conservation concessions; conservation easements; conservation incentives agreements; payments for environmental services; transferable development rights
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Dpartement Forts du CIRAD, TA 10/D, Campus de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
Publication date: 01 June 2007
- The International Forestry Review is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes original research and review papers on all aspects of forest policy and science, with an emphasis on issues of transnational significance. It is published four times per year, in March, June, September and December. Theme editions are a regular feature and attract a wide audience.
The IFR is part of The Global Forest Information Service - GFIS
International Forestry Review has an Impact Factor of 1.705 - Editorial Board
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