National sources

A government's power to tax can be used in a variety of ways to raise funds for conservation and to promote conservation activities in general. Belize charges a tourist tax of $3.75 for each passenger arriving in country by plane or cruise ship, with the proceeds going to a national conservation trust that supports protected areas and other conservation activities. Costa Rica and other countries impose a tourism tax on the price of hotel rooms, some of which is earmarked for conservation. Several states in the U.S. include a voluntary 'check-off' on state income tax forms that allow taxpayers to donate a portion of their tax or refund to wildlife conservation. Tax deductions and exemptions can be offered to encourage financial support of conservation as well as specific kinds of conservation activities, such as easements and transfer of development rights, that allow protected area systems to conserve key areas without going through the expense of full acquisition.

Tax systems have many advantages. The income is generated nationally, reliably, and sustainably, year after year; the burden of payment falls generally on users of the protected areas (e.g. hotel guests, tourists, people using the MPA for recreation) income generated in this manner can be used as the recipient sees fit, accountability being to the public at large and not to a donor; there is usually no need to set up a new collection bureaucracy, as the existing systems for taxes, levies, and surcharges can handle the collection.

The primary disadvantage of these systems is the difficulty of winning political support for new taxes, and of keeping them earmarked for conservation once they are enacted. In Belize, years of negotiations were required before the conservation tax was established, at a much lower level than originally anticipated. Here, as in many countries, special legislation was required for the tax to be earmarked for a special fund rather than paid into the general treasury.