The economics of wildlife farming and endangered species conservation

There is growing concern that the traditional “protectionist” approach to conservation is expensive and insufficient to deliver the desired environmental outcomes. “Supply side” policies to conserve endangered species have drawn support. By generating supplies from captive-bred animals, wildlife commodity prices are expected to fall, thereby lowering the incentive to poach species in the wild. Supply side policies, however, often neglect the institutional framework within which the wildlife trade takes place, and ignore the potential strategic responses of economic agents. Adopting a model that captures imperfect competition between traders and farmers, we analyze the effect of supply side policies and conclude that under some circumstances these policies may contribute to further devastation of wild stocks. We derive conditions under which captive breeding contributes to conservation, and discuss implications for policy makers.