The earth is on the brink of a sixth extinction crisis, making it urgent to expand programs to conserve nature and its biodiversity, especially in tropical countries with the highest biodiversity. One option is the use of market mechanisms such as crediting systems to help conserve tropical forests to limit both the emissions of greenhouse gases and the loss of biodiversity. An existing market already exists for carbon credits, though it has been undermined by a series of critical investigations, and emerging programs are being discussed for biodiversity credits. This article describes a number of fundamental flaws with biodiversity credits, any one of which is potentially fatal. Together they indicate that biodiversity credits cannot be effective in addressing the conservation of biodiversity, and that we need to develop and enhance other, more legitimate ways to fund biodiversity conservation. In essence, the principal reason we are talking about biodiversity credits is not because they are effective, but because of the relentless promotion of the idea by the financial intermediaries who would become its main beneficiaries. Red passion vine flower in the Colombian Amazon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Here are nine reasons why biodiversity credit trading cannot work: Credit trading is a structurally unsound regulatory device that lacks integrity The biggest problem is that crediting programs are a highly imperfect regulatory methodology that has rarely worked well anywhere. The system is easily gamed, accountability is lax, key issues like additionality and leakage are very difficult to prove, and it requires significant transaction…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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