differ by country, climate, principal natural resource, population density, own-
ership regimes, and more. The basic structure of the approach conforms read-
ily to large tracts of unpopulated, state-owned land of only marginal economic
value. Greater numbers of local resource users, intensity of resource exploita-
tion, and complexity of tenure rights can raise the opportunity cost of conser-
vation and the transactional cost of negotiating and implementing conserva-
tion concessions. Although these considerations may influence the price of a
particular concession, they do not necessarily preclude applying the approach
in a given situation as long as effective tenure rights are secure. The basic prin-
ciple of promoting conservation as a negotiated business transaction among
resource users, governments, and international conservation investors holds
promise in many contexts.
Conservation concessions and sustainable agroforestry programs can serve
as complementary approaches to biodiversity conservation and income gener-
ation. First, when sustainable agroforestry faces obstacles, conservation con-
cessions provide an exit option to farmers who otherwise have few alternatives.
Second, given that agroforestry per se does not guarantee a stable forest fron-
tier (see Chapter 5, this volume), conservation concessions applied in con-
junction with sustainable agroforestry efforts can increase the probability of
achieving a stable spatial equilibrium. Under such scenarios, conservation con-
cession payments can be used to facilitate agroforestry efforts (rather than
more destructive agricultural land uses) on land designated for production in
return for commitments to fortify protection of remaining natural habitat.
When applied to land set-asides and retirement strategies, a conservation con-
cession may facilitate a transition to permanent protected status for the area in
question. The following sections present two scenarios in which conservation
concessions can enhance biodiversity protection within agroforestry land uses.
Retiring Coffee Farms in Colombia
Coffee cultivation accounts for nearly 12 million ha of land in nearly 80 coun-
tries throughout the tropics (FAO 2001). Nineteen of the 25 global biodiver-
sity hotspots emphasized as conservation priorities by CI (see Chapter 1, this
volume) are major coffee-growing regions (Myers et al. 2000). This overlap
results from the fact that agroclimatic conditions ideal for growing coffee also
support ecosystems of high conservation value. Sustainable coffee cultivation
is an attempt to ameliorate the ensuing conflict between coffee cultivation and
biodiversity, supported by a proliferation of certified “green” coffees in the
marketplace. However, although shade coffee poses less threat to conservation
than other potential land uses (see Chapter 9, this volume), it is not a substi-
tute for natural habitat. Moreover, certified coffee accounts for less than 1
percent of global coffee markets, limiting the potential for sustainable agro-
140 II. The Ecological Economics of Agroforestry