Grassroots economics for conservation: instruments and alliances for a new economic order

Abstract

Economic frameworks in conservation have so far mostly focused on the macro scale of human-environmental relations and top-down policy instruments. These approaches have been invaluable in streamlining ecological discourse into the leading global institutions, and advancing the fundamental field of ecological economics. However, the international socio-economic context has profoundly mutated since those frameworks were first conceived in the late 1900s. Some drastic and apparently unrelated changes include: the spectacular growth of non-Western economies; the gravest economic crisis since 1929; growing inequality between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the human population; increasing preying on natural resources driven by profit and attained through illegal means; unprecedented low confidence in financial and administrative institutions; and technological innovations aiming to downsize the role of intermediaries in those same institutions. This new economic order clearly poses great challenges but may also present unexpected opportunities. For these to be seized, however, a new array of tools and approaches need to be developed. We argue that conservationists should increasingly team up with unorthodox economists and social activists to test the effectiveness of alternative economic instruments. These may include decentralized distribution networks, complementary currencies, and peer-review-based certifications. By sustaining communities and livelihoods, grassroots instruments of this kind can equally act as means of economic resistance and contribute to protecting local natural resources. As such, they can represent an ideal complement to the macro-economic frameworks currently applied in conservation.