""From Walden to Wall Street makes clear that a system of market-based conservation finance is vital to the future of environmental conservation."" -Henry M. Paulson, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.; Chairman of the Board of Governors, The Nature Conservancy In the absence of innovation in the field of conservation finance, a daunting funding gap faces conservationists aiming to protect America's system of landscapes that provide sustainable resources, water, wildlife habitat, and recreational amenities. Experts estimate that the average annual funding gap will be between $1.9 billion and $7.7 billion over the next forty years. Can the conservation community come up with new methods for financing that will fill this enormous gap? Which human and financial resources will allow us to fund critical land conservation needs? From Walden to Wall Street brings together the experience of more than a dozen pioneering conservation finance practitioners to address these crucial issues. Contributors present groundbreaking ideas including mainstreaming environmental markets; government ballot measures for land conservations; convertible tax-exempt financing; and private equity markets. The creativity and insight of From Walden to Wall Street offers considerable hope that, even in this era of widespread financial constraints, the American conservation community's financial resources may potentially grow dramatically in both quantity and quality in the decades to come.
Foreword Preface
Chapter 1. Financial Innovation for Conservation: An American Tradition Chapter 2. Conservation Finance Viewed as a System: Tackling the Financial Challenge Chapter 3. Contours of Conservation Finance in the United States at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century Chapter 4. State and Local Government Funding of Land Conservation: What is the Full Potential? Chapter 5. External Revolving Loan Funds: Expanding Interim Financing for Land Conservation Chapter 6. Employing Limited Development Strategies to Finance Land Conservation and Community-Based Development Projects Chapter 7. Expanding the Frontiers of Conservation Finance Chapter 8. Transferable State Tax Credits as a Land Conservation Incentive Chapter 9. Payrolls Versus Pickerels Redux: A Story of Economic Revitalization and Timberland Conservation Using New Markets Tax Credits Chapter 10. Mainstream Environmental Markets Chapter 11. The Gray and the Green: The Built Infrastructure and Conservation Investment Chapter 12. Financing Private Lands: Conservation and Management Through Conservation Incentives in the Farm Bill
Bibliography About the Contributors Index
"From Walden to Wall Street makes clear that a system of market-based conservation finance is vital to the future of environmental conservation."
