From Conservation International
September 25, 2000

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Conservation International, working with the government of Guyana, has established an unprecedented and powerful new tool for biodiversity conservation, by obtaining an exploratory lease of 200,000 acres of pristine forest in Guyana as the world's first "conservation concession."

Under the terms of the conservation concession, Conservation International (CI) has leased a large forest area in Guyana at market rates, and will then protect the area rather than use it to extract timber. CI plans to use this new market mechanism to protect millions of acres of forest around the tropics over the next several years.

"Conservation concessions should not be considered a substitute for the creation of parks and protected areas, but simply an alternative which allows conservationists more flexibility," said Russell Mittermeier, president of CI. "Conservation concessions will offer countries an alternative to the current situation in which the only people willing to pay for the rainforest are those who want to cut the forest down."

A concession is a lease of land that is granted by a government to be used for a specific purpose. Land is generally leased by timber companies to carry out logging activities, which are often given tax holidays or find ways to evade taxes. In the end, governments like Guyana's often receive very little financial benefit from granting timber concessions. A conservation concession, on the other hand, is a guaranteed steady stream of hard currency that is not vulnerable to international timber markets or local currency fluctuations, ensuring economic benefits for the government. CI will employ people locally to manage the forest.

The Guyana Forestry Commission has stated that the conservation concession in Guyana will be similar to a standard Timber Sales Agreement, in that it will follow the same legal model regulated by the commission. The terms of the concession, its size, fees, and stewardship, are all the same as in a traditional forestry model.

Unlike a traditional timber lease, however, CI will not engage in destructive forest development. This will allow Guyana to preserve a portion of its forest in a natural state while receiving compensation for the environmental services it provides to the world by leaving the area of forest intact.

"Guyana's natural resources are of global importance for conservation," said Dr. Richard Rice, chief economist for CI's Center for Applied Biodiversity Science. "Its forests are among the least disturbed in the world and contain species of plants and animals found no place else on the planet. Preserving these resources in their natural condition offers people around the world a service Guyana has been unable to sustain through traditional market mechanisms."

CI and Hardner & Gullison Associates, a private-sector partner, developed the idea of conservation concessions after determining that environmentally rich countries could gain more from preserving its natural resources than from granting concessions to timber and mining companies.

Conservation International applies innovations in science, economics, policy, and community participation to protect the Earth's richest regions of plant and animal diversity in the hotspots, major tropical wilderness areas, and key marine ecosystems. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., CI works in 32 countries on four continents. For more information about CI's programs, visit www.conservation.org.

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For more information, contact:

Dana Topousis
Media Relations Manager
Conservation International
202-533-9532
d.topousis@conservation.org
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