The conservation concession approach emphasizes compensation and
social investments on one hand and appropriate enforcement and monitoring
activities on the other. The key to the approach lies in decoupling income
from habitat modification and natural resource extraction and instead linking
economic benefits to successful conservation. Perhaps the most basic illustra-
tion of the approach comprises a conservation concession that pays local stake-
holders to desist from forest clearing and remunerates them for monitoring
and enforcing habitat protection. In July 2002 CI concluded such an agree-
ment with the government of Guyana, covering an area of about 81,000 ha in
southeastern Guyana. Under the terms of the 30-year lease, CI pays the gov-
ernment annual acreage fees and royalties equal to those payable by timber
concessionaires, amounting to about US$30,000 and $11,000, respectively,
and includes voluntary annual investments of $10,000 in development proj-
ects to benefit three communities living near the concession (Guyana Chroni-
cle2002).
Some Advantages of the Conservation Concession
Approach
A conservation concession yields immediate, transparent conservation benefits
that can be easily identified and measured in spatial terms, thereby demon-
strating clear conservation benefits to potential biodiversity investors.
Although international willingness to pay for conservation is substantial and
increasing, a growing trend emphasizes outcome-based rather than process-
based indicators of effectiveness of conservation funds; conservation invest-
ments must generate unambiguous, measurable results in terms of area and
species protected (Porter and Kramer 2000). The concrete geographic basis of
conservation concessions, in which conservation of a clearly defined area
derives from a negotiated business transaction, directly responds to this trend.
The underlying objective of a conservation concession is long-term habi-
tat maintenance. Nevertheless, from the perspective of a host government, the
expiration of a concession’s term presents an opportunity to reexamine the
best use of the area in question. Renegotiation and extension of the agreement
may present an attractive option: conservation concessions offer substantial,
secure revenue for the host government and local stakeholders and are cost-
effective from the perspective of the international conservation community.
Most importantly, this mechanism enables conservation to pay for itself on a
large scale, in a way that avoids many of the obstacles and complications fac-
ing other conservation approaches such as high-maintenance integrated con-
servation and development projects and elusive sustainable extraction models
(Wells et al. 2000; Rice et al. 2001).
Much of the appeal of the conservation concession approach lies in its sim-
plicity. However, the model must be tailored to specific circumstances that
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