The urgent need to ensure the conservation of biological diversity is now widely recognized, but practical measures to protect endangered species and habitats are still small-scale and generally limited to developed countries. This volume offers a detailed analysis of the economic and scientific rationales for biodiversity conservation. It discusses the justification for, and implementation of intellectual property rights regimes as incentive systems to encourage conservation. The contributions form an interdisciplinary approach encompassing fields of study such as evolutionary biology, chemistry, economics and legal studies. The arguments are presented through the case study of medicinal plant use in the pharmaceutical industry. The book will be of interest and relevance to a broad spectrum of conservationists from research students to policy makers.