Can South Africa use Land-based Financing for Biodiversity Conservation?

Globally there are calls for incentives for biodiversity conservation, including the mobilization of financial resources to implement biodiversity targets effectively. Multi-level governance has long been identified as a major factor in improving biodiversity conservation policies and subnational governments can only play a meaningful role in this regard if their fiscal needs to achieve this goal are acknowledged. Currently there is limited relief for environmental protection and biodiversity conservation in South African fiscal legislation. Although progress has been made in developing and diversifying sources of finance for biodiversity management, compensatory “relief” for their conservation initiatives is not automatically available to municipalities.
Given that South African municipalities that are keen to pursue a conservation agenda cannot presently access any grant funding to cover concomitant costs, other avenues of cost recovery must be explored. This research project will focus on land-based financing (LBF) tools as possible instruments that could be used by government (especially at the local sphere) to enhance revenues and contribute to biodiversity conservation.