The debate over the goals and means of biodiversity conservation has reached a stage where it is becoming increasingly accepted that, for ideological reasons or instrumental ones, the involvement of the local community living in and around protected areas (PAs) is critical to the success of the conservation effort. This acceptance of 'community-based conservation (CBC)' is, of course, at a very general level; the devil is in the details of what is meant by involvement, what incentives are necessary and sufficient to obtain local involvement, what rights and responsibilities can be and should be devolved to the community, what process and institutions will ensure broad-based participation and sustainability of the arrangements as well as of the ecosystem, and so on. One particular approach being experimented with by several agencies is rooted in the belief that if communities living in and around PAs are to be willing partners, they must develop a direct and substantial economic stake in the biodiversity of the area. If such an economic stake is created (either by strengthening an existing biotic resource-based enterprise or creating a new one), the community will have the incentive to regulate its own activities vis-à-vis the protected ecosystem/area. In this paper we describe the preliminary results of an ongoing 'enterprise-based conservation' effort taken up by us in southern India. This work is being carried out under the aegis of and financial support from the Biodiversity Conservation Network (BCN, a programme funded by the US Agency for International Development; see also Bhatt in this book).