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Biodiversity conservation tax incentives were inserted into the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 in terms of the Revenue Laws Amendment Act 60 of 2008 and are now contained in section 37C. The objectives of this study were to quantify the maximum potential revenue loss, to National Treasury, as a result of these tax incentives granted to landowners in the Western Cape; to identify and discuss alternative policy instruments to encourage conservation; and to investigate the perceptions of landowners in the Western Cape on the tax and alternative incentives available for conservation. The study found that the maximum tax revenue foregone should amount to a tiny percentage of total estimated revenue income for the 2008/2009 fiscal year, while projected future losses could also be insignificant. Landowners prefer direct financial incentives and exemption from property taxes, and contend that direct assistance with conservation activities would also be beneficial. The use of municipal value in the valuation of land would promote objectiveness and consistency. Finally, only a third of the landowners indicated that tax incentives would encourage them to commit more land for conservation.

This paper aims to explore the biodiversity reporting by a state-owned entity responsible for conserving and protecting biodiversity assets in South Africa, the South African National Parks (SANParks) (SOC) Limited.

This study uses content analysis to explore and investigate the disclosure themes in the SANParks reports for the period 2013–2017. The frequency of substantive disclosures is also evaluated over a five-year period. The data are presented graphically in frequency charts and supported by descriptive statistics and univariate correlations for non-normal data. This provides insights into the amount of information being disclosed and the interconnections among biodiversity reporting themes.

SANParks has increased its reporting on biodiversity over time. Disclosures are interconnected and deal with a range of issues, including species at risk of extinction, operational considerations, risk management practices and how SANParks evaluates its environmental performance. The information is detailed and included in different parts of the organisation’s annual reports suggesting a genuine commitment to protecting biodiversity. There are areas for improvement but SANParks frames biodiversity as a central part of its strategy, operations and assurance processes something which would not occur if the disclosures were only about managing impressions.

The study is among the first to explore biodiversity disclosure themes in a state-owned entity in Africa, responsible for the conservation. While the study deals with a specific case entity, the findings are broadly applicable for other organisations keen on constructing a biodiversity account.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in efforts to conserve biodiversity.

The paper examines a case study of biodiversity conservation efforts to restore a degraded blanket bog habitat. The analysis adopts a social nature perspective, which sees the social and the natural as inseparably intertwined in socio-ecological systems: complexes of relations between (human and non-human) actors, being perpetually produced by fluid interactions. Using a theoretical framework from the geography literature, consisting of four mutually constitutive dimensions of relations – territory, scale, network, and place (TSNP) – the analysis examines various forms of accounting for biodiversity that are centred on this blanket bog.

The analysis finds that various forms of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity have rendered this blanket bog visible and comprehensible in multiple ways, so as to contribute towards making this biodiversity conservation thinkable and possible.

This paper brings theorising from geography, concerning the social nature perspective and the TSNP framework, into the study of accounting for biodiversity. This has enabled a novel analysis that reveals the productive force of ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity, and the role of such accounting in organising the world so as to produce socio-ecological systems that aid biodiversity conservation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the biodiversity reporting practices and trends of the top 50 Australian mining companies before and after the United Nations (UN) declared the period 2011-2020 as the “Decade on Biodiversity”.

Using content analysis and interviews, this study compares the extent and type of biodiversity disclosures made by the Australian Stock Exchange’s top 50 metals and mining companies both before and after the UN’s “Decade on Biodiversity” declaration in 2010.

A significant increase in the amount of biodiversity reporting is observed between the 2010 fiscal year preceding the UN’s declaration and the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years following the declaration. The findings reveal, however, that the extent of biodiversity reporting is quite variable, with some companies showing substantial increases in their biodiversity reporting and others showing modest or no increases. In particular, the larger companies in the sample showed a statistically significant increase in their disclosures on biodiversity in 2013 compared with 2010, while the increase in biodiversity disclosures by smaller companies was not significant. While interviewees spoke about their companies being more open and transparent, the biodiversity information that is being reported would not enable external parties to assess the company’s biodiversity performance.

To minimise an organisation’s use of biodiversity reporting as an impression management tool, it is suggested that biodiversity reporting should be more impact based and organisations should provide a report of their activities and their direct and tangible impacts on short-term and long-term biodiversity in and around their operating sites. A possible limitation of the present study pertains to its focus on companies’ voluntary disclosures made in their annual reports and sustainability reports, as opposed to other possible formal or even informal disclosure mediums.

Australia is one of 17 mega-diverse wildlife countries in the world. Finding ways to support the country’s biodiversity framework and strategy are crucial to this continued status. Due to the mining industry’s significant impact on Australia’s biodiversity, a strong need exists for biodiversity reporting by this industry. Furthermore, this reporting should be provided on a site-by-site basis. At present, the reporting aggregation typically conducted by mining companies produces obscure information that is neither useful for stakeholders who are impacted by the mining companies’ activities nor for policymakers who are vested with responsibility for protecting and sustaining the world’s biodiversity.

This study examines the biodiversity reporting and discourse practices of mining companies in Australia and develops a 50-item biodiversity reporting index to measure the biodiversity reporting practices.

The purpose of this paper is to re-kindle debate about finding a conceptual and pragmatic basis for accounting and accountability researchers and to incorporate biodiversity management into the internal practices, routines and communication of organizations.

A qualitative interplay of theories, particularly structuration theory, applied to an interdisciplinary, communitarian and eco-centric perspective will be used to demonstrate the need for change: for researchers and practitioners to interact with other disciplines and adapt their professional, institutional and governance practices to incorporate biodiversity management and reporting within organizational structures.

Collective community action can be undertaken by aligning physical biodiversity and its setting with the interrelationship between external information structures, accountability and internal information structures, agent behaviour and the reporting of outcomes. This should assist in reducing the loss of species and richness triggered by unsound economic decision-making.

This is perhaps one of the few accounting studies which discuss theoretical frameworks for the integration of accounting/accountability systems and biological diversity information through a conceptual rethinking.

This should assist in reducing the loss of species and richness triggered by unsound economic decision-making.

This paper re-opens the debate regarding the need for an alternative conceptual approach through which biodiversity management can be incorporated into the complexities of business interactions, and the social and natural systems, by using management accounting as a primary vehicle. This is perhaps one of the few accounting studies which discuss theoretical frameworks for the integration of accounting/accountability systems and biological diversity information through a conceptual rethinking.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of narratives in biodiversity reports as a mechanism to raise the awareness of biodiversity’s importance. By classifying biodiversity narratives into 14 categories of biodiversity values this paper investigates whether the explanations for biodiversity conservation used by UK local councils are line with shallow, intermediate or deep philosophies.

This study used content analysis to examine the disclosures on biodiversity’s importance in the biodiversity action plans published by UK local councils. The narratives were first identified and then allocated into 14 categories of biodiversity value. Then, they were ascribed to either shallow (resource conservation, human welfare ecology and preservationism), intermediate (environmental stewardship and moral extensionism) or deep philosophies.

UK local councils explained biodiversity’s importance mainly in terms of its instrumental value, in line with shallow philosophies such as human welfare ecology and resource conservation. UK local councils sought to raise awareness of biodiversity’ importance by highlighting values that are important for the stakeholders that are able to contribute towards biodiversity conservation such as landowners, residents, visitors, business and industries. The authors also found that local councils’ biodiversity strategies were strongly influenced by 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity.

This paper is one of the few accounting studies that engages with the literature on environmental ethics to investigate biodiversity. In line with stakeholder theory, it indicates that explanations on biodiversity’s importance based on anthropocentric philosophies are considered more effective in informing those stakeholders whose behaviour needs to be changed to improve biodiversity conservation.

The purpose of this study is to illuminate the disclosure of biodiversity material contained in the reported information of 151 local government authorities (LGAs) in New South Wales, Australia. The introduction of the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (an international treaty to sustain the rich diversity of life on earth) has made the issue of fauna management and monitoring, and the associated requirement for cost-effective information, much more important. As local communities are best placed to make decisions about the protection of their local environments, the content in external reports and other disclosures allows stakeholders to gauge how accountable LGAs are regarding the conservation of biodiversity within their geographical jurisdiction.

Content analysis was used to analyze the disclosures of these LGAs.

The results reveal marked differences in the reporting of biodiversity issues. In fact, LGAs in the state of New South Wales (Australia) have been, at best, lukewarm in their disclosure of strategic information relating to biodiversity, particularly in their strategic goals and plans.

This paper contributes to the academic literature on biodiversity reporting by investigating existing reporting practices and providing evidence that a universally adopted framework for biodiversity reporting and reporting of local native fauna is required. In particular, the impacts of these practices need to be properly understood for LGAs to provide accountability to their stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and examine the problem of biodiversity loss and to explain its underlying causes and the possibilities of using economic instruments to conserve it.

The research in this paper was undertaken through a review of the literature and an analysis of data on the trends of various measures of biodiversity worldwide.

The loss of biodiversity is occurring worldwide at a rapid rate that has the potential to significantly undermine the prospects for sustainable development. Although the main proximate cause of biodiversity loss is land conversion, the fundamental causes are rooted in economic, institutional, and social factors and include market failures and the lack of property rights.

This paper presents arguments in support of using economic instruments to conserve biodiversity and explains the conditions under which the use of these instruments is likely to be most successful.

This paper illuminates the economic, social and institutional factors that underlie the rapid loss of biodiversity and outlines some ways in which economic instruments can be used to stem the loss of biodiversity.

This paper aims to suggest that companies have ethical reasons to report about biodiversity issues and to investigate whether companies act on these reasons by examining the extent of biodiversity reporting in Denmark.

For the first purpose, desk research was conducted using consequentialist ethics, while for the second purpose, data were gathered from the 2009‐2011 annual reports, CSR‐type reports and homepages of 24 Danish large‐cap companies.

Philosophically, it is shown that biodiversity preservation and reporting is an ethical issue, even on the assumption that biodiversity does not possess intrinsic value. Empirically, it is shown that Danish companies score poorly overall, both quantitatively and qualitatively, with regards to reporting on biodiversity.

Even though the importance of biodiversity can be justified on different assumptions, biodiversity reporting is under‐researched offering potential for future research on a globally important issue.

Justifying the preservation of biodiversity from an instrumental viewpoint might convince accounting audiences that are sceptical of normative ethical argumentation based on intrinsic value. The relative lack of biodiversity reporting in Denmark shows the need for the State and accounting standard setters to address this issue together with business and other stakeholders.

Few studies theorize on why there is a need for environmental reporting. Those that do are based on non‐instrumental considerations. This paper gives philosophical arguments for biodiversity reporting normally outside the scope of accounting. It emphasizes how even those who deny that biodiversity has intrinsic value are morally obliged to account for biodiversity. The argument also provides novel reasons for why thinking about discount rates should be governed by pure preference considerations. Empirically, this is only the second paper examining biodiversity reporting and the first about the Danish context.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how data from marine protected area (MPA) surveys can be used to facilitate the development of systematic approaches to monitoring biodiversity within local government development plans and across marine bioregions.

The study focussed on coastal Barangays of the Municipality of San Luis, Aurora Philippines. A Participatory Coastal Resource Assessment (PCRA) was conducted to gather information on corals and reef fishery resources. Resultant Simpson’s biodiversity indices were calculated and compared to other MPA sites. Linkages to enhanced marine curriculum in a San Luis high school were evaluated by utilizing cultural consensus theory (CCT) on previously reported local student perception surveys as a further effort on defining pathways for localized transformation.

San Luis MPA biodiversity indices ranged from 0.56-0.8 on a scale of 0-1. This initial analysis demonstrates how local monitoring can be connected to resource assessment through biodiversity considerations and in developing local plans for site improvement linked to local economies. Results are used to demonstrate the potential for further development of an integrated approach to biodiversity monitoring across and between bioregions as a step forward in strengthening science for MPAs and biodiversity conservation for the Philippines.

The study could be used to pilot study strengthening of coastal resource management (CRM) at Municipal and Barangay levels and as well through application of CCT to the topics. The results will be used to reinforce the formulation of San Luis local development plans to better consider marine resource assessment.

This paper provides a new perspective on the use of quantitative measures of biodiversity to assist with local development plans. Projecting integrated biodiversity monitoring across and between bioregions is considered as a potential tool for facilitating climate change mitigation.