Beyond Economic Efficiency in Biodiversity Conservation

Franz W. Gatzweiler

Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 2008, vol. 19, issue 2-3, 215-238

Abstract: This paper aims at explaining the importance of the democracy stance as compared to the efficiency stance in order to achieve the conservation of biodiversity. While the efficiency stance only refers to the realm of relatively simple systems, individual rationality, and instrumental values, the complexity stance transcends these boundaries into the realm of complex systems, social rationality and intrinsic values. I argue that if biodiversity is not only regarded as a resource but also a systemic condition, the task of biodiversity conservation is impossible to achieve in economically efficient ways only, because (a) it is impossible to come to a (fully informed) complete account of all values, (b) intrinsic values are involved which exclude themselves from being accounted for in economically efficient terms, and (c) biodiversity conservation can be regarded as an end in itself instead of only a means towards the end of human well-being. The point I raise is, that in order to cope with biodiversity conservation in its entirity we need to choose value articulating institutions which take better account of intrinsic values or even feelings of people who are ultimately part of the same system and may feel that their existence should not be justified on the grounds of economic efficiency. It is how we choose to perceive people and biodiversity that determines choices of how to conserve biodiversity and invest in peoples conservation capabilities. JEL-Codes: B52, Q51, Q57

Keywords: Biodiversity conservation; efficiency; complexity; values; feelings; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://jie.sagepub.com/content/19/2-3/215.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jinter:v:19:y:2008:i:2-3:p:215-238

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().