Conservation at All Costs: A Policy for Underdevelopment?

Abstract

Colombia's strict conservation-at-all-costs policy appears to promote underdevelopment by bureaucratizing and blocking innovation based on such an exclusive and valuable resource as natural diversity. The difficulty of accessing primary information related to the study of species, genetic, and chemical biodiversity present in our natural ecosystems leaves the country lagging behind its immediate neighbors in developing transformation policies based on this precious resource. As a result, current policy continues to be framed around schemes based on supplying raw materials rather than processing them, which minimizes the possibility of obtaining added value from the sustainable use of diversity.