Is conservation basic income a good idea? A scoping study of the views of conservation professionals on cash giving programmes

Amongst mounting criticisms surrounding market-based instruments for conservation, there have been calls to develop new tools to incentivise conservation action. Conservation basic income (CBI) has recently been proposed as a means of combining the environmental aims of market-based instruments with the positive social impacts of cash transfer programmes. So far, CBI has only been discussed conceptually, with little attention given to the practicalities of implementing it, especially through empirical work. This scoping mixed-methods study is the first to explore the views of conservation professionals on CBI and applying cash giving for conservation. In our study, we use a questionnaire conducted with 45 conservationists experienced in working in low-income countries (though mostly originally from high income countries) and six in-depth interviews with an environmental NGO implementing cash transfers. The opinions of these professionals, who implement conservation policies and shape their uptake, provide insight into the real-world applicability of cash giving for conservation, and whether CBI might realistically be used. The study found that cash giving has support amongst our sample for use in conservation, and that CBI might be a popular proposal. However, due to the heterogeneity of rural communities and their development needs, CBI may not be applicable everywhere in its suggested form. Instead, CBI could potentially be refocused to 1) act as a framework for bespoke cash transfer programmes, and 2) be intended for use alongside parallel development programmes to enable greater conservation and development outcomes.