SUMMARYTo address human–wildlife conflicts and the related threat of extinction of the African lion, in 2003, the Maasailand Preservation Trust established a fund at the Mbirikani Group Ranch in southern Kenya to provide monetary compensation for livestock killed by wildlife. In this paper, the policy arrangement approach (PAA) is used to analyse this arrangement as a form of payment for environmental services (PES). Although there has been a considerable reduction in the number of lions killed, the analysis reveals several limitations of this arrangement, including three main side effects, namely it has initiated a process that is difficult to sustain or reverse, created a new cycle of dependence and widened the gap between different groups in the community. In conclusion, the drawbacks of this type of compensation fund must be addressed by combining such arrangements with other public and private policies and initiatives. Careful examination and comparison of different kinds of experiments with PES-like arrangements are required to further build understanding of the potential and different contributions of public and private, market-based initiatives in biodiversity governance.
One of the greatest challenges in nature conservation is funding. In the pursuit of new financing sources critical to fight biodiversity and ecosystem loss, nature conservation organisations increasingly aim to create networks between states, markets and civil society. Using Manuel Castells' network theory and World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) as a case study, this article aims at understanding how large conservation NGOs utilise networking in their pursuit for funding. Apart from increasing income by attracting public funds from governments and aid agencies, around 2010 WWF's public sector finance strategy expanded to influencing and leveraging finance-both public and private-using public funds. During WWF's engagement with private sector financing, paradoxically its public sector financing grew at the average rate of 7.5% per year. Our network analysis shows that WWF has continuously reworked and renegotiated its position in order to stay connected to the 'space of flows'. WWF and other large conservation organisations have to be in the right networks, speak the right language, and connect to relevant social, informational and political flows to stay relevant and connected to substantial flows of funding.
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