IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Dinerstein, E.; Varma, K.; Wikramanayake, E.; Lumpkin, S. | |
| Wildlife premium market and REDD | |
| 2010 Full Book | |
A contributor to continued biodiversity loss is the absence of market mechanisms to finance the recovery and protection of globally important species and habitats. In this, the Year of Biodiversity and the Year of the Tiger, we propose a change in the status quo of undervaluing wildlife through a new model in which conservation of endangered species and habitats becomes financially attractive to investors. We describe the start up and operation of a wildlife premium market+REDD, a market that will add value to proposed carbon payments, established under international mechanisms and located in globally important areas for biodiversity. The initial example focuses on one critical target: recovering endangered wide ranging mammal species, specifically tigers. We explain the type of monitoring, reporting, and verification required to make such a market credible based on the best science available. The wildlife premium concept can also be applied to conserving a global portfolio of biodiversity priorities and we offer such a framework. We believe this new market mechanism has the potential to: 1) arrest the continued loss of species and erosion of global biodiversity in tropical forests; 2) create payment schemes to improve livelihoods for the rural poor who live near areas of high biodiversity value; and 3) serve as a dividend, an additive to carbon offsets to better value functional ecosystems with intact wildlife resources. The failure of moral arguments alone to persuade governments and local stakeholders to conserve endangered wildlife calls for bold new approaches to avert the great extinction crisis that looms on the horizon. |
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