摘要：Intact ecosystems provide important global services. Many valuable ecosystems are located inlow-income countries in which citizens are not in a position to provide global public goods gratis. Toaddress this problem, international conservation and development donors have been making substantialinvestments in habitat conservation. Among the more common conservation schemes are interventionsaimed at encouraging commercial activities that produce ecosystem services as joint products. We arguethat it would be more cost-effective to pay for conservation performance directly. We use a simple yetgeneral model to establish three conclusions. First, the overall cost of conservation is least when directpayments are employed. Second, the donor will generally find direct payments more cost-effective.Third, the preferences of donors and eco-entrepreneurs are opposed: when the donor prefers directpayments, the eco-entrepreneur prefers indirect subsidies. There are a number of reasons why directincentive programs may be difficult to implement. We argue, however, that any approach to conservationwill face similar challenges. Furthermore, we demonstrate with an empirical example that direct paymentinitiatives can offer spectacular cost-savings relative to less direct approaches. We therefore believe thatcontinued experimentation with direct conservation incentives in the developing world is warranted andwill prove successful.
