Economic potential for biodiversity use in southern Africa: empirical evidence

摘要

Walker's paper encapsulates what many non-agricultural resource managers have been thinking for some time. Essentially, it suggests that there is potential for replacement of much conventional agriculture in developing regions with biodiversity use activities. It considers conventional agriculture to be non-sustainable and ascribes the fact that biodiversity use has not been more widely adopted so far, to perverse incentives. In this response I examine some empirical results from southern Africa to see to what extent this premise is economically sound.