Collateral biodiversity benefits associated with ‘free-market' approaches to sustainable land use and forestry activities

Biodiversity yields many sustainable development benefits yet, paradoxically, human societies continue to undermine this valuable resource base, instigating large-scale biodiversity losses and species extinctions. Most worrying, however, is that the situation is actually deteriorating faster than resources can be mobilized to counteract the destructive processes, hence the commonly expressed view that we are heading towards a sixth ‘mass extinction’.