A market approach to conserving biodiversity

The policy now used to implement the Endangered Species Act (ESA) only prohibits actions that are harmful to listed species, While doing far too little to advance the cause of biodiversity, such prohibitions, or the prospect of them, seem to be imposing significant costs on many regional economies, and much greater impacts are feared, The article describes a market mechanism for simultaneously internalizing the social cost of eliminating especially scarce habitat, and the social benefits of protecting or producing it, For landowners with low value non-habitat land uses, the market mechanism transforms habitat from a major liability into a money-making asset. For landowners with high value non-habitat uses, the market mechanism would be a very attractive alternative to the current slow and expensive case-by-case consultation process, Environmentalists will appreciate the market process because it is less subject to politicization, or being gutted budgetarily or administratively, while assuring that agreed-upon, safe biological minimums cannot be violated.