As ASIIF we are well aware that over the last decade a number of environmental economists have been strenuously promoting market-based approaches as the only feasible solution to biodiversity conservation. A range of organizations and institutions have responded by enthusiastically embracing this market-based approach to conservation. Such organizations include international financial institutions like the World Bank, a number of large conservation organizations and a broad range of commercial and semi-commercial environmental institutions and consultancy firms. According to these advocates, creating new markets in environmental services is the most efficient way of conserving forests and other environmental assets.

They argue that by giving these natural 'assets' a market value and creating a market for them, the 'invisible hand' of the market will automatically generate the desired objectives. The belief is that the market is the most effective and efficient way of reducing pollution because it gives incentives to industry to reduce its emissions in the most cost- effective manner. They also argue that regulation is ineffective and burdensome because it increases rather than decreases industry's costs.