Article Summary: Why Bartering Biodiversity Fails

Becca Madsen on August 20, 2009 Comment

Susan Walker, Ann L. Brower, R.T. Theo Stephens, William G. Lee. Conservation Letters, Vol 2, issue 4, August 2009, p. 149-157. Accessed online in August 2009.

Conservation Letters delivers a doozey for biodiversity trading (or "bartering", since biodiversity is the un-commodity) in an article challenging of systems of trading biodiversity. A sampling of their criticisms: the breadth of "biodiversity" can't be captured in a tradable unit; restrictions to trading systems to address time/space and like-for-like issues don't really work; no one is willing to pay for the level of biodiversity information you'd need for a defensible system; and no one in the biodiversity trading world has a vested interest in biodiversity protection... even enviros - who don't get into the trading world because they don't buy into the premise that trading systems can be strict, well-measured, and protect biodiversity in the first place. This is not an article suggesting a tweak of one part or another of the system, but rather a rebuke of the whole.