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Since the mid-1980s, conservation policies have promoted the financial appraisal of biodiversity as a way to ensure its protection. The erosion of biodiversity is attributed to its non-inclusion in the market, and particularly to the fact that some its values are unaccounted for because they are unpriced. Attempts to develop market instruments over the years have focused on different environmental aspects and have given rise to various institutional arrangements. The most recent proposals include the appraisal of ecosystem services and mechanisms to mitigate the destruction of habitats for endangered species. While their promoters describe these institutional devices as market-based instruments and their opponents see them as part of a process of monetizing nature, these schemes nevertheless have limited market features. The financialization of nature is a complex process whose effects cannot all be described in terms of commodification.