Beyond Markets: How to Achieve Just and Transformative Biodiversity Conservation

We are pleased to share the newly published policy brief “Beyond Markets: How to Achieve Just and Transformative Biodiversity Conservation”.

The policy brief brings together insights from the discussions held during the sixth EnJust Conference, “Offsetting Justice? Environmental Justice in the Age of Market and Militarized Conservation,” which took place in Bonn from 3 to 5 December 2025. The conference brought together environmental justice scholars, political ecologists, activists, and development and conservation practitioners from around the globe.

Conservation needs reform, as current approaches have failed to halt biodiversity loss. This policy brief provides a number of suggestions on how to make biodiversity conservation more just, equitable, and effective.

Key messages:

• Just conservation: Conservation policies that contribute to environmental justice have the greatest potential to achieve long-term, sustainable and legitimate conservation outcomes for people and the planet.
• Land rights-based conservation: Land rights reconfigure power relations and are a key prerequisite for environmental justice. Collective land titles such as Colombia’s Peasant Reserve Zones (ZRCs) are a promising instrument.
• Towards distributive justice by reforming conservation finance: Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP&LCs) should benefit more directly from forest, climate and biodiversity funding and should have a say in how money is spent in their communities. IP&LC-led funds and designated funding windows for IP&LCs are promising options.
• Basic Income for Nature and Climate (BINC): The brief suggests BINC as a promising measure to improve the livelihoods of IP&LCs and to overcome the transactional logic of market-based instruments. BINC compensates for past environmental injustices and enables recipients to make land-use decisions that are less influenced by precarity and market forces.

The publication reflects the value of bringing diverse perspectives together through the EnJust Network and translating conference discussions into policy-relevant recommendations.

Publication Details

Title: Beyond Markets: How to Achieve Just and Transformative Biodiversity Conservation
Authors: Jonas Hein et al.
Year: 2026
Publisher: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Bonn
Series: IDOS Policy Brief 25/2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.23661/ipb25.2026

Read the full policy brief: