Imagine governments were to simply transfer money, unconditionally, to people living in or using key conservation areas throughout the world, from Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest to cattle herders roaming the plains of East Africa or fisherfolk living in coastal Indonesia. This is the conservation basic income, or CBI, a recent proposal modelled on the popular concept of a universal basic income.
We have calculated a global CBI would cost at least US$351 billion each year, and maybe as much as US$6.73 trillion. Our research is published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Either way, it’s an enormous figure, considerably more than the roughly US$133 billion that governments currently spend on conservation each year.
