The Scientific Partners of BIOECON are pleased to announce the Eighteenth Annual International BIOECON conference on the theme of “Instruments and Incentive Mechanisms for Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Service Provision”. The conference will be held at Kings College Cambridge, England between the 14th – 16th September 2016. BIOECON 18 will be of interest to both researchers and policy makers working on issues in the area of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and sustainable development, in both developed and developing countries. In particular, we wish to explore the latest theoretical and empirical research on instruments and incentive mechanisms. The conference aims to present evidence on which instruments have worked and research on new instruments and incentive mechanisms that offer potential improvements or refinements on the existing toolkit. For instance, can conservation and environmental objectives be achieved via Conditional Cash/Social Transfers? How can Payments for Ecosystem Services be scaled-up from their current limited applications? What instruments can assist in conserving biodiversity as part of natural capital? The conference welcomes work on developed and developing country experiences.
The conference takes a broad interest in the area of resource management, development and conservation, including but not limited to: the role of biodiversity and ecosystem services in economic development, plant genetic resources and food security issues, deforestation and development, fisheries and institutional adaptation, development and conservation, wildlife conservation, and international trade and regulation. The conference will have sessions on economic development, growth and biodiversity conservation, as well as on institutions and institutional change pertaining to the management of living resources. For a flavour of previous conferences go to BIOECON 16 and BIOECON 17.