Market-based instruments for achieving conservation outcomes are being implemented by Australian governments and regional natural resource management organisations with increasing regularity. Their benefits are argued to include: increased flexibility in resource management, improved individual incentives and application of specialist site knowledge to management, achievement of outcomes at lower cost, and greater adaptability to ever changing goals. This fact sheet is based on the report Barriers to and opportunities for increasing participation in conservation auctions by Stuart Whitten, Andrew Reeson, Jill Windle and John Rolfe.