Ecosystem Services and Global Trade of Natural Resources

13  International Biodiversity Offsets

Annah L. Peterson, Chloe Hill and Louise A. Gallagher

Introduction

Intensifying patterns of international trade resulting from globalization create significant challenges for conservation efforts (see Chapter 2 for a more nuanced discussion of the relationship between globalization and conservation). By increasing primary commodity imports (meat, wood, coffee, sugar, etc.), developed nations are indirectly exporting environmental pressures to resource-rich developing countries in the form of heightened land-use change largely manifesting as deforestation and, consequently, increased biodiversity loss (see Chapter 6). Compounding these international drivers of extinction are more local pressures stemming ...