Chapter 11. Chapter 11: Preserving Biodiversity

What options are available for financing conservation efforts and what role do consumers play in protecting biodiversity?

Why You Should Care

What role can you play protecting biodiversity? Often, the best way is to vote with your wallet. Many commodity products like coffee, chocolate, and lumber are available certified by different organizations as “fair-trade” or “sustainable.” Although fair-trade refers directly to providing a fair price for local growers, it usually encourages them to produce their trade items in ways that have less of an impact than commercially grown crops. Most of us don’t normally have occasion to buy exotic items like ivory, but making sure that you are not buying protected products or organisms will reduce demand for the items and therefore the likelihood that species will be over-harvested. Making your next vacation a visit to an ecotourism resort can be a great way to stimulate local economies and provide monetary reasons for local residents to preserve their ecosystems. It’s easy to believe that your single efforts don’t matter, but the dramatic increase in “green” products is evidence that enough people have shown an interest that corporations have taken notice.

Businesses and corporations as well as governments can provide major monetary incentives to protect biodiversity. This includes debt-for-nature swaps, debt forgiveness to governments in exchange for preserving habitat, and the buying of conservation credits—support provided for preserving biodiversity in one area by companies that have developed another.