What Do Conservation Groups Bring to the Table?
Conservation organizations can provide both tangible and intangible services to the private sector as encouragement for the latter to change their business practices. In tangible terms, conservation NGOs may be able to provide even highly capitalized companies, with technical skills that might both reduce the operating costs of the company and the environmental impacts of logging or mining practices. For example, WCS was able to help CIB to develop a more efficient road system into a new logging block using satellite-based vegetation maps and GIS tools. By designing a road network that avoided swamplands and steep grades, the new roads saved the company money on road construction and reduced the environmental impact of road building. Conservation organizations can also provide a broad range of short-term technical experts to the private sector that they would be unlikely to hire full-time. By doing so conservation organizations offer the private sector a low-cost way to identify practi
