Current regulatory approaches have not prevented the loss of biodiversity across the world. This book explores the scope to strengthen conservation by using different legal mechanisms such as biodiversity offsetting, payment for ecosystem services and conservation covenants, as well as tradable development rights and taxation. The authors discuss how such mechanisms introduce elemhents of a market approach as well as private sector initiative and resources. They show how examples already in operation serve to highlight the design challenges, legal, technical and ethical, that must be overcome if these mechanisms are to be effective and widely accepted.

With each species lost to the mass extinction crisis, the natural economy of the nation and of the world is greatly diminished. An endangered animal may hold the cure for cancer; a threatened plant could someday become a major food crop; and even bacteria often provide novel molecular structures in polymer science. As the rainforest is destroyed and habitats are degraded, conservationists are now urgently searching for dramatic new ways to save these economic resources. In this provocative and important book, Joseph Henry Vogel details one potential solution that has met with increasing interest and popularity: the privatization of genetic information. Vogel cogently makes the case that the world should abandon the doctrine of "the common heritage of mankind" and create private property rights over genes. Landowners, once vested with the genetic resources on their land, will have a newfound financial incentive to protect what they now already control. Genes for Sale provides an overview of the many complexities inherent in implementing a viable conservation policy. Vogel elaborates both technical issues like the construction of a "gargantuan database" of landtitles and biological inventories, and political issues like legal reform. Clearly written, engaging, and timely, Genes for Sale provides students, scientists, and policy makers alike with the ideal introduction to an exciting and controversial new approach to saving our precious living heritage.

A payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme is a mechanism whereby payments are provided in exchange for the management of land to maintain or enhance the health of the ecosystem, thereby providing benefits for the public or specific beneficiaries, e.g. carbon storage or control of water resources. Such payments can take the form of flat-rate subsidies or individually negotiated contracts to ensure that greater effectiveness can be achieved. This mechanism has been used in many parts of the world with varying degrees of success and is now increasingly being considered in the United Kingdom (UK) as one way of conserving biodiversity. There are benefits to this approach, but also challenges that must be faced when applying this mechanism. The main aim of this article is to present some of the challenges to be met if the use of PES is to be expanded. Specifically, this article examines whether the benefits of PES schemes should accrue to the owner or occupier of land, taking into account the endless variety of tenancy agreements and other interests in land, including the particular problems of common land in England and Wales and crofting in Scotland. By analysing the literature on the schemes in operation abroad and the UK examples and how they address these property rights issues it is possible to provide the basis for the design choices to be made if PES schemes are to play a bigger role in UK conservation law. Given the need to secure services over a prolonged period if they are to deliver real benefits, the article argues for the need to devise appropriate legal safeguards that reflect the different ownership and occupation interests, that can guarantee the continuing provision of services despite changes in ownership and occupation, but that are flexible enough to cope with the dynamic nature of both the environment and our demands on it.

'An easily read book illuminating the multifarious process of environmental degradation, as well as the motley social movements, especially on a grass-root level, resisting the privatisation of common resources and ecological degradation on both a local and global level.' Capital & ClassTackling the key themes - such as the convergence of environment and social justice, global commodities, and the role of social movements - the contributors draw on examples from the Amazon, Mexico, Cameroon, India and the industrialised North.

This updated text takes account of all legislative changes since 1993 and brings together the various parts of the law in Scotland governing nature conservation to guide all who share a professional interest in the subject.