Background information

The conservation concession concept was formulated by economists working with Conservation International and takes a free-market approach to protected area conservation. Consortiums or individuals purchase the management-rights of forest land from a government, in much the same way as forestry or plantation companies buy logging or land-use conversion rights.

This is a departure from the approach that has characterised the last 50 years of the international conservation movement. Conservation NGOs have traditionally cajoled developing country governments to create national parks and nature reserves on state-owned forest land. The NGOs have then helped government agencies to manage these reserves. By taking on conservation concessions, NGOs are now directly responsible for managing the land.

This is the appeal of conservation concessions: that they allow NGOs to take more control of the protected area process. They can implement their own management plans and eliminate the complications of trying to support the under-funded and often dysfunctional government agencies that exist to manage protected areas. Conservation NGOs have had some successful experience of directly managing areas in the US and Europe. Using a market based approach also avoids the uncertain and protracted process of lobbying governments to establish new protected areas. Thus conservation concessions offer the prospect of quickly and effectively protecting valuable bio-diverse forests from land-use conversion and degradation.

This policy sounds promising, but critics have identified concerns. Firstly, the state ownership of forest land is contested in many developing countries and NGOs would inherit these controversies with the land. Secondly, the ownership and management of land units over a few thousand hectares in size will create operational challenges of a new magnitude. The concern is that these issues will move conservation NGOs into a different league of governance and accountability requirements. As there is no precedent of conservation projects on this scale, NGOs may lack the experience, capacity and legitimacy to cope with this challenge.

The goal of this event is both to produce an insightful and reflective discussion that will contribute to the improvement of the quality of conservation action and also to advance the thinking concerning the nature of accountability regimes for NGOs. This relates to the work of a group of researchers at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship who are developing management tools to help NGOs. A key insight from this research is that the capacity of an NGO to act depends on the perception of their legitimacy: in other words, the perception that their actions are proper, necessary and effective. Judgements regarding this legitimacy are based, in part, on perceptions of the transparency and accountability of the organisation. The question that this event will address is whether this type of panel discussion could, or should, form part of an enhanced accountability regime for NGOs which would increase their ability to deliver on their mission.

See Further Reading for background articles