Journal Article

Hopes and Fears for Incentivising Coexistence With Big Cats Through Innovative Market‐Based Financial Mechanisms

Sibanda, Lovemore, Gomez, Chrishen, Cotterill, Alayne, Ray, Shreya, Dickman, Amy, Mutinhima, Yolanda, Hare, Darragh, Lepard, Clara, Carter, Harrison, Droge, Egil

2025

Overview

There is increasing global interest in developing market‐based financial mechanisms to direct greater private capital funding into biodiversity conservation. Additional funding derived through credit or bond‐based products can offer hope to improve local cost:benefit ratios of wildlife presence and incentivize coexistence. However, conservation is complex, and we fear these mechanisms carry risks of unintended consequences, particularly where conservation metrics are insufficiently thought through, and locally affected communities are not equitably engaged. Here, we outline our perspective of these hopes and fears, with a particular focus on big cat conservation, conflict and coexistence. We encourage conservation scientists, practitioners, and community members not to cede the development of these mechanisms completely to financial experts or standard setters, but to take a more active role in learning, offering critique, and supporting the engagement of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. This engagement is vital to managing risk head on and maximizing the potential benefit of these mechanisms for human‐big cat coexistence. 全球对发展以市场为基础的金融机制, 引导更多私人资本投入生物多样性保护的兴趣日益浓厚。通过信贷或债券产品获得的额外资金可以为改善当地野生动物生存的成本效益比率提供希望, 并激励人类与野生动物和谐共存。然而, 保护工作错综复杂, 我们担心这些机制可能带来意想不到的后果, 特别是在保护指标考虑不足和当地受影响社区没有公平参与的情况下。在这里, 我们概述了对这些希望和担忧的看法, 特别关注大型猫科动物的保护、冲突和共存。我们鼓励保护科学家、实践者和社区成员不要将这些机制的发展完全交给金融专家, 而是在学习、提出批评和确保当地社区参与方面发挥更积极的作用。这种参与对于管理正面风险和最大化这些机制对人类与大型猫科动物共存的潜在效益至关重要。 Practitioner Points Innovative market‐based financial mechanisms offer the potential for additional private finance to support human‐wildlife coexistence, but carry significant risks worthy of prior consideration. Key considerations include not only the conservation metrics used to measure project success, but the early and ongoing engagement of affected stakeholders with equitable distribution of benefits in line with costs incurred. Interest in market‐based financial mechanisms are proliferating: it is imperative that conservationists and locally affected communities are equitably involved in their design and development to minimize risks and maximize the potential for positive outcomes.