Property Rights and the Maintenance of Wildlife Habitat: The Case for Conservation Land Transactions

Abstract

Imagine that we actually wished to create an effective legal institution to maintain large quantities of high quality wildlife habitat. What would that institution look like? I will argue that some of the inherent qualities of the legal institutions we call property make that type of institution more suitable for the maintenance of wildlife habitat than the legal institutions we call regulation. While many of my observations would apply to most forms of property, I offer a conservation easement as an example. While I support property-based approaches to wildlife habitat preservation, I also caution that property cannot be considered in isolation and that any successful property-rights-based approach must have a regulatory structure to support it. Although market pricing may have little function in most conservation land transactions, the transaction itself is central for the simple reason that it guarantees a voluntary arrangement.