Saving Scarce Species from Extinction through Free Enterprise

Abstract

Clearly defined private property rights allow owners to calculate their profits and losses. Ownership, therefore, enables the rational allocation of scarce capital toward profitable ends. Production of biological organisms are not exceptions to economic calculation. If the present prohibitions on the mass production of rare living creatures were repealed, profit-seeking entrepreneurs might choose to mass produce so-called endangered species on a competitive market. Naturally, some of the resulting non-human, living pieces of private property might well trespass, attack, and predate on the properties of other enviropreneurs. Staving off extinctions through a free-market approach to declining biodiversity would require a new legal framework. Indeed, well-defined property rights in privately owned fauna and flora would become an essential lynchpin in the legalized market of rare animal and plant production. The author offers some starting points toward a laissez faire capitalist structure of property rights principles under the law to increase incentives toward greater production of commodifiable species.