Private parks are springing up all around the world. If conservationists are to achieve their goals, therefore, they must work with the private sector

IN THE days of Captain Cook, Hawaii's native goose, the nene (pronounced neh-neh), was abundant. By the 1950s it was almost extinct. What nearly cooked this particular goose was not, however, the Hawaiian habit of baking it in underground ovens for supper, but the loss of its habitat—most of which has become farmland. Today, successful captive breeding programmes have produced hundreds of nene, but that is only half the battle. If the goose is to prosper, it must be returned to the wild. That means restoring its habitat. And that, in turn, means dealing with the private landowners on the island of Molokai whose property is the most suitable for nenes to live on.

According to researchers at a meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology held in Hilo, on Hawaii, earlier this month, the nene is not alone. Many conservationists see government-run national parks as the key to the survival of endangered species. In America, however, between a third and a half of such species are believed to live only on privately owned land. And in many other countries the role of private reserves is even more crucial. The national parks in impoverished tropical countries are often poorly protected or even poached with the connivance of corrupt officials—and some exist only on paper. In these places, private parks may actually offer better protection to wildlife than their publicly owned counterparts. Governments that care (or wish to be seen to care) about wildlife conservation would thus do well to encourage the growth of private reserves.

Money isn't everything

As Jeffrey Langholz, a researcher in international environmental policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, in California, told the conference, private reserves already constitute about an eighth of the total amount of land on which wildlife is protected around the world. And in some countries, notably Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Kenya and South Africa, their area is growing fast.

While many governments would like to encourage private conservation, they have little idea of how to do it

Unfortunately, while many governments would like to encourage private conservation, they often have little idea how to do it. That, in turn, is due to a misunderstanding about why people have set up such reserves in the first place. For example, Dr Langholz has surveyed the owners of many private reserves in Costa Rica, where they protect some 640km2 of land. He found that government offerings to these owners—in the form of tax breaks, protection against occupation by squatters and access to technical assistance—had little incentive value.

That was because the majority of owners are not motivated primarily by money. Only 30% of them rely on their reserves for a steady stream of income, in the form of revenue from “ecotourists”. (This may be abnormally low: a wide-ranging survey of private reserves in Africa and Latin America suggests that 59% of those that host ecotourism are profitable.) Most owners say they are more concerned about threats to biodiversity, and what they see as the failure of governments to promote conservation. One, who prefers to remain anonymous, used to run one of the largest logging operations in the Amazon. Now he is dedicated to protecting his private reserve of 10km2 of Costa Rican forest in penance for his earlier career.

Even profitable reserves frequently have their revenue devoted to conservation, rather than the owner's bank balance. Some idea of the economics involved can be gathered from the example of a Costa Rican reserve that made profits of more than $3m in its first six years of operation. The owners used $1.2m of that to pay off the loan for the original land purchase. But instead of spending the rest on champagne and cruises, they invested another $1.1m in an endowment fund that is intended to pay for the reserve's protection in perpetuity.

Costa Rica is not alone in this potential misunderstanding between governments and landowners, though the details differ from place to place. In the United States, for example, landowners' perceptions are often that the government is doing too much for conservation, not too little.

A few years ago a scheme for registering natural landmarks, including the habitats of endangered species, in America, backfired because it failed to take account of the country's strong tradition of property rights. Even today, after the scheme has been made voluntary (it was originally compulsory) it is still regarded by some landowners as part of a conspiracy by the government to acquire control of their property.

A similar problem was encountered with the Endangered Species Act. Initially, this had the perverse effect of making it harder to persuade people to agree to promote habitat conservation on their land. The fear was that the arrival of a rare species would restrict the use an owner could make of that land in the future. An experimental scheme is now trying to get round this, granting exemptions from such restrictions for those who “invite” rare species on to their property.

Many private owners favour conservation over profit

Not all American landowners feel the same way. In Hawaii, regarded by some as the “world capital” of extinction because of the number of unique species it has lost since it was first settled by people, the largest private landowner in the state is prepared to compromise profit for conservation. Kamehameha Schools is a trust that owns 1,500km2 of land (originally a legacy from one of Hawaii's last princesses). The trust's income is used to run schools for Hawaiian children. Most of this income, though, comes from investments rather than land exploitation. As a result, half of the trust's land is kept for conservation purposes and generates no revenue at all.

This apparent contradiction of the trust's official purpose is justified, according to Peter Simmons, its senior land manager, because, as Hawaiian landowners, the trustees “care spiritually, and in some cases religiously, about the land”. This, he says, is connected to the belief that livelihood and quality of life are directly related to the quality and life of the land.

Noble sentiments. And ones that seem to motivate many custodians of private reserves in other countries, too. Whether they will be enough to re-establish the nene, remains to be seen.