The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC)—is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year! Founded in 1980 by a handful of outdoor-oriented economists in Bozeman, Montana, PERC is a conservation and research institute dedicated to free-market environmentalism. Four decades later, PERC remains dedicated to improving environmental quality through property rights and markets. PERC’s work has led to conservation policies and practices that focus on results rather than rhetoric, and replace conflict with cooperation.
On its 40th anniversary, PERC is taking the lessons learned and looking ahead to find innovative, market approaches to improve wildlife conservation and public lands management. PERC’s research examines the unintended consequences of wildlife policies that stifle conservation and offers market-based solutions. PERC believes that by turning wildlife from liabilities into assets private citizens have a clear incentive to invest in habitat preservation.
Likewise, PERC seeks to foster better, more effective management of the nation’s public lands by harnessing the power of entrepreneurship, markets, property rights, and cooperative partnerships. PERC supports providing public land managers with greater freedom and flexibility to implement locally responsible solutions and engaging users in funding our public lands. Through research, outreach, workshops, and fellowships, PERC will continue to advance free-market environmentalism and change the way the US does conservation in 2020.
