As the threats to our natural world become ever greater, so conservationists are obliged to seek more innovative and far-reaching approaches. Economic approaches, by firmly addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss, can offer promising solutions to intractable problems.

 

Conservation science increasingly teaches us that ecosystems cannot be conserved in protected areas alone. Instead, we must work on bigger scales, across whole landscapes and eco-regions. This means that we must actively engage with people and companies, we must understand what influences the choices that they make, and we must provide solutions that encourage them to conserve and protect ecosystems. At the same time, we must demonstrate how the sustainable use of ecosystems can benefit people, leading to poverty alleviation more effectively than alternative, environmentally destructive approaches.

 

The use of economics offers great potential in contributing towards the achievement of these goals. This guide demonstrates some of the ways in which WWF has developed economic approaches to the achievement of conservation success around the world, and some of the lessons that we have learned in the process. I hope that it will stimulate us to develop new approaches and partnerships and to emulate these successes.