Where the rubber hits the road: Biodiversity conservation incentives in theory and practice

The lack of appropriate incentives through conventional markets is a major cause of deterioration of biodiversity on private land. In response, governments often intervene through changing the incentives faced by landholders. There are, however, potentially many ways that the incentives to private landholders could encourage improved conservation of native vegetation on private lands. These policies and incentives leverage change in different ways and are suited to differing opportunities and objectives and incur different costs. Our goal in this paper is to provide some guidance to support incentive selection and design decisions. We initially develop a framework for incentive decision, design and implementation. The framework is supported and illustrated using a number of case studies of pragmatic incentive delivery. Some common themes that emerge from this analysis are: the importance of understanding the biodiversity and institutional issue; methods to optimise opportunities or work within constraints; and the importance of incentive review and revision.