I just came across the article, African animals need to be owned to survive, and it reminded me of this post, so I thought you might be interested. The author is from an organization I hadn't heard of before, The Cloudburst Group. I'll need to learn more about them. (Her name is Karol Boudreaux - I wonder if she's related to Don Boudreaux? Her Bio lists George Mason, so I bet she is...). Anyway, hope you find the article interesting.
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Thanks @remlaps! That was an interesting article.
You know, I was just thinking again about this the other day. In North Dakota, we have pheasants, which were introduced from Asia but enjoy strong conservation efforts by the general public because they are a desired hunting bird and bring in economic revenue.
So if a non-native species can be so strongly conserved, I think that is a pretty obvious solution! Of course, this doesn't account for many types of species, such as 1) animals that don't reproduce quickly enough to hunt 2) plants, insects, bacteria, pretty much any species humans don't have a direct use for 3) non-charismatic or "pest" animals such as wolves, etc.
Good points. PERC has done some stuff with wolves. If I understand it, it boils down to setting up a fund to reimburse the ranchers when a wolf takes one of their animals. I'm leery of public/private partnerships, but I guess it's a step in the right direction. Not sure how you verify that the livestock animal really was taken by wolves, though, so I'd be concerned about abuse if the program grew to any substantial size.
Ultimately, if the problem is going to have a lasting solution, I think it depends on innovative entrepreneurship. Environmental entrepreneurs need to find ways to profit from keeping these species alive. Your point about direct use reinforces what I keep thinking, that cryptocurrency could have a role here, in accounting for indirect value chains, but I haven't been able to figure out exactly how that would work.