Using the Airbnb Model to Protect the Environment

Using the Airbnb Model to Protect the Environment
The big insight was realizing “we could use a rent rather than buy model,” said Mark Reynolds, an ecologist with the
Nature Conservancy, which pays rice farmers to flood their fields for the few crucial weeks each fall and spring.
In early fall, when birds head south for the winter,
and again in early spring on their return journey, birds need larger protected areas than the current mix of parks and nature preserves allows, as the website Howstuffworks reported in August.
“We think this is a big idea,” Mr. Reynolds said, adding that it “could really help us with adapting to change.”
Climate change might alter natural wetlands and when and where birds migrate.
Rice growers routinely flood their fields for irrigation
and to decompose crop residue after harvest; through the conservation program, named BirdReturns, they do so during periods when the fields would have been dry.
Short-lived nature preserves fulfill the needs of migratory birds, but long-lasting conservation efforts using private land are urgently needed, too.
The innovation makes it possible to transform a binary approach to land use — either devoting
it to private development or turning it into a nature reserve — into something in between.