Demand side management (DSM) is one of the most topical issues in regulating electric utilities, both in the United States and internationally. What is DSM? It consists of various measures at the level of demand (households, commerce, industry, others), which are at least partially financed by electric utilities and which should either conserve energy or reduce the peak load. The practice of DSM originates from The Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 (PURPA) that provided the political and legal framework to set energy conservation as a national goal, which encouraged regulatory commissions to initiate utility conservation programs; see e.g., Nowell-Tschirhart (1990) and Fox-Penner (1990). Moreover, integrated resource planning, which must account for DSM on a level playing field with supply, is written into the 1992 Energy Policy Act as the U.S. Government's preferred method of electric power planning. Although PURPA set energy conservation as a national priority, its implementation was left to the states with the consequence of considerable differences concerning efforts and rules. By 1993 16 states had already implemented integrated resource planning, 9 were in the process of doing so and further 9 considered implementation, (EPRI 1993b). Due to the Clean Air Act of 1990, 24 states are considering to include external costs in integrated resource planning.

Charles Perrings and Ann Kinzig address the broad problem of conservation, the principles that inform conservation choices, and the application of those principles to the management of the natural world. Conservation examines how conservation choices are made and demonstrates how decisions of one person or one community at one time or place affect people or communities at other times or places.

Nearly 90 percent of the earth's land surface is directly affected by human infrastructure and activities, yet less than 5 percent is legally "protected" for biodiversity conservation--and even most large protected areas have people living inside their boundaries. In all but a small fraction of the earth's land area, then, conservation and people must coexist. Conservation is a resource for all those who aim to reconcile biodiversity with human livelihoods. It traces the historical roots of modern conservation thought and practice, and explores current perspectives from evolutionary and community ecology, conservation biology, anthropology, political ecology, economics, and policy. The authors examine a suite of conservation strategies and perspectives from around the world, highlighting the most innovative and promising avenues for future efforts. Exploring, highlighting, and bridging gaps between the social and natural sciences as applied in the practice of conservation, this book provides a broad, practically oriented view. It is essential reading for anyone involved in the conservation process--from academic conservation biology to the management of protected areas, rural livelihood development to poverty alleviation, and from community-based natural resource management to national and global policymaking.