NGOs and Environmental Public Goods: Institutional Alternatives to Property Rights

NGOs are linked to environmental objectives for good reason: non-profit NGOs provide a flexible, private-sector answer to the provision of international environmental public goods. The non-profit sector can link for-profit, non-profit, and public-sector objectives in complex contracts. This article examines how, for the case of the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) in Costa Rica, such complex contracts with both domestic and international parties provide partial solutions to public goods problems in the absence of private property rights over genetic resources. INBio's ‘monopoly’ position, legitimized by the local government, brings in rents from genetic resources which are reinvested in the production of public goods.