|
|
|
Scientists report on conservation biology economics at Brazilia conference Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology July 25, 2005 Below are conservation biology economic papers submitted for the conference. All descriptions are excepts from the official "Book of Abstracts" from the meeting. More abstracts. RICKETTS, TAYLOR H.; Naidoo, Robin; Dinerstein, Eric. Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th St. NW, Washington, DC, USA, taylor.ricketts((AT))wwfus.org. Ecosystem goods and services - the economic benefits that people derive from nature - have received increasing attention as a tool to inform land use decisions that balance biodiversity conservation and human needs. Studies to date, however, typically focus on individual services (e. g., crop pollination, water purifi- cation), analyzed at local scales in a non-spatial manner. Here, we develop spatially-explicit analyses that integrate several ecosystem services over regional scales. These analyses are intended to better match the scale and scope of conservation plans developed by many conservation organizations and national governments. Testing our methods in a high-biodiversity forested ecoregion, we find first that important areas for ecosystem services overlap imperfectly with areas previously identified as biodiversity priorities. Second, benefits from ecosystem services accrue to human populations at multiple scales, including beyond the boundaries of the ecoregion in question. Finally, the economic value of ecosystem services from conserved areas can match or exceed the opportunity costs associated with habitat transformation, making conservation an economically competitive land-use. While preliminary and imperfect, maps of ecosystem goods and services and their economic value can inform conservation planning over broad scales, illuminating both the trade-offs and synergies between conservation and development THE CONSERVATION RESOURCE ALLOCATION PROBLEM. POSSINGHAM, HUGH P.; McCarthy, Mick A.; Pressey, Robert L.; Wilson, Kerrie. The Ecology Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia. We formulate the general conservation resource allocation problem. This encompasses all issues of resource allocation in conservation, including: national spending on threatened species, reserve system design and problems of local biodiversity management. The general formulation tells us how to optimally allocate effort to different management actions in both time and space. The approach is illustrated with two examples. First, we show how funds should be allocated to threatened species in a country or region using an example of Australian birds. This introduces the controversial issue of ecological triage. Second, we show how habitat destruction, metapopulation dynamics and other dynamic ecological processes can be accommodated into conservation planning. We will resolve the concern about whether more classical static conservation planning is a valid approach to real world reserve system design - an issue that is controversial in the current literature HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THE BIODIVERSITY VALUE OF INVESTMENTS BY THE GLOBAL CONSERVATION FUND? PILGRIM, JOHN D.; Ashkenazi, Erica; Rodrigues, Ana S. L. Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International MAPPING OPPORTUNITY COSTS OF BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AT DIFFERENT SCALES. NAIDOO, ROBIN; Adamowicz, Wiktor L.; Ricketts, Taylor H. Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th St. NW, Washington, DC, 20037, USA, robin.naidoo((AT))wwfus.org (RN, THR). Department of Rural Economy, 515 General Services Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2H1 (WLA). Conservation scientists recognize the value of incorporating economic costs into conservation planning. Despite this, applications have been few, perhaps because of limited data on land prices. We present methods for estimating opportunity costs of land preservation. Our approach derives from the literature on estimating land values as opportunity costs of alternate land uses, and takes advantage of general availability of necessary data, even in relatively data-poor regions. We provide two illustrations of our methods at two different scales. The first is in a forested landscape undergoing agricultural conversion in Paraguay. Our model of opportunity costs predicts an independent dataset of land values. We use the resulting cost map to estimate the costs of conserving two proposed corridors in the landscape. The second example is a coarseresolution map of opportunity costs of conservation for the world's terrestrial regions. We use this map to produce rough estimates of the cost of large-scale global conservation priority schemes. These methods have broad application for conservation planning in situations where natural habitat is being converted to human-dominated land-uses (i. e., most of the world). Incorporating economic data into conservation planning can help us to design efficient networks of protec ted areas that represent biodiversity at minimum costs COMPARING POTENTIAL ECONOMIC BENEFITS FROM SUSTAINABLE AND UNSUSTAINABLE USE OF IMATACA TROPICAL FORESTS IN THE VENEZUELAN GUIANA. MORALES, GONZALO; Hernández-Valencia, Ismael. Instituto de Zoología Tropical, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela. Apartado 47058, Caracas 1041-A, Venezuela, lmorales((AT))ciens.ucv.ve. The Imataca Forest Reserve (IFR) harbors over 3 million Ha of nearly pristine and biologically diverse tropical forests (e. g., over 740 terrestrial vertebrate species and 2300 vascular plants are reported). In law, IFR is devoted to sustainable forestry, but legal and illegal gold mining have long been there. This industry jeopardizes indigenous culture and health, but its socio-economic benefits are thought to exceed those from timber production. We addressed this issue by comparing probable gross revenues from sustainable forestry (SF), tourism, non-timber forest products (NTFP), environmental services (ES), wild meat (WM) and Carbon fixation (CF) versus legal gold mining (LGM). Benefits from genetic resources could not be quantified. Prices of goods and services refer to the 1994-2003 decade. All figures are in US $ millions per year (for short, MM) and they refer to 3.011 million Ha of tropical forests. Our estimations are SF 97.6 MM; combined NTFP and ES 3000-22000 MM; CF 45-90 MM; WM 0.06 - 0.12 MM; tourism 0.9 - 2.3 MM, and LGM 53 MM. Environmental restoration costs were not drawn from LGM revenues. We conclude that benefits from sustainable use of Imataca forests may largely exceed those from legal gold mining, while preserving indigenous culture and health ECONOMIC VALUE OF CARPENTER BEES TO PASSION-FRUIT PRODUCTION IN MORRETES, PARANÁ, BRAZIL. LÖWENBERG-NETO, PETER; Melo, Gabriel A. R. Departamento de Zoologia, Setor de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, Caixa Postal 19020, CEP 81531-990, Brasil, lowenberg_ p((AT))yahoo.com.br. Passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) is an economically important crop to small farmers in Morretes, eastern Paraná. Passion flowers are self-incompatible and require the pollination services of large bees, such as Xylocopa spp., to set fruits. This study aims at estimating the economic contribution of carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.) to the income from passion fruit production in Morretes. The market prices and values, in US$, were obtained from field interviews and agricultural agencies; additional information was taken from the literature. Locally, the plants bloom during 210- 240 days a year. Previous studies indicate that 5 workers manually pollinated one hectare in 2 hours. The price of a workerday in Morretes is about $6.50, therefore one person would cost $8.00/day/ha doing the bees' work. The mean fruit productivity in Morretes is approximately 600 boxes/year/ha and the mean fruit price is about $6.30 per box. The gross income minus the costs from implementation/ maintenance and from hiring workers to carry out the bees'work results in a net profit of only about $480-720/year/ha. The value of pollination services, provided by carpenter bees, corresponds to about 50% of the total income from passion fruit production in Morretes and contributesXIX Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology ABSTRACTS approximately US$ 120,960-138,240/year to the region. (Funding: PROBIO-MMA/CNPq/GEF/BIRD INCREASING THE ELASTICITY OF CONSERVATION FUNDING: HOW FAR DOES MONEY "STRETCH" FROM WHERE IT IS RAISED TO WHERE IT IS SPENT? HOEKSTRA, JONATHAN M.; Sanjayan, M.; Boucher, Timothy M. The Nature Conservancy, Global Priorities Group, 217 Pine St., Suite 1100, Seattle, WA 98101 USA (JH), jhoekstra((AT))tnc.org. The Nature Conservancy, Global Priorities Group, 4245 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22203 USA (TB, MS). Conservationists have been long obsessed with determining where best to conserve nature. Despite the scientific rigor of these various priority-setting exercises, critics have pointed out that the allocation of conservation funding does not seem to match the biological priorities. A significant challenge for conservation organizations is to direct donations raised in one place to support work in far away places. Conservation - like politics - is local, and so there is an inertia to spend money close to home. Understanding how far money can be "stretched" from where it was raised to where it is spent, and identifying factors that make donations more or less "elastic" is essential to improving funding for global conservation priorities. To estimate a benchmark for just how far money may need to "stretch" to address global conservation priorities, we compare the distribution of global conservation priorities to global concentrations of wealth. We then examine a time series of data on major donations to The Nature Conservancy to identify incentives and strategies that have helped a predominantly U. S.- based organization support more international conservation. Our findings suggest ways to make conservation funding more elastic so that money can be directed more efficiently to the field USING BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS AS A MITIGATION TOOL IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR. EKSTROM, JON M. M. BirdLife International, Wellbrook Court, Girton, Cambridge, CB3 0NA, UK. Biodiversity offsets are conservation activities intended to compensate for the residual harm caused to biodiversity by development projects. They form part of a three stage process in the environmental mitigation hierarchy: first avoid impacts on biodiversity, then minimise these impacts, finally offset impacts with com-ABSTRACTS Universidade de Brasília, Brazil, July 2005 pensatory measures Offset implementation is furthest developed in the US where "mitigation banking" has become commonplace. Currently, offsets are emerging in the international private sector in the guise of voluntary corporate responsibility (CR) programmes of several multinationals who wish to demonstrate "no net loss" to biodiversity through their operations. I present results of a multivariate analysis of the biodiversity programmes of several transnational companies to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, using examples from high biodiversity countries such as Madagascar. I find that the mechanism has already resulted in positive impacts on biodiversity in several cases, but the application of offsets is hindered by a) low rates of voluntary takeup amongst all but the largest companies; b) lack of international and national regulation; and c) and poor concurrence on what constitutes an offset. I conclude that at least on the latter point, the conservation biology community could provide much guidance to facilitate this process POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION: POLITICS, CONCEPTUAL COMPLEXITY, AND CONTEXTUAL VARIETY. REDFORD, KENT H.; Agrawal, Arun. WCS Institute, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY, 10460, USA, kredford((AT))wcs.org (KR); School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48103, USA (AA). Poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation are both important global social objectives. Unfortunately, the relationship between these two is sufficiently difficult that the existing literature on the subject has generated highly divergent and conflicting conclusions. Our paper reports results of an analysis of four specific programmatic interventions that have attempted simultaneously to alleviate poverty and conserve biodiversity. We show that the outcomes of these interventions have registered great variety both because of the fuzziness of basic underlying concepts of poverty and biodiversity, and tremendous variations in the political, ecological and social contexts of the interventions. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of context-sensitive criteria in developing programs to address both poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation COMPENSATION MECHANISMS FOR LEGAL RESERVES IN BRAZILIAN FARMS. CAMPARI, JOÃO. Central South America Savannas Conservation Program, The Nature Conservancy, SHIN CA05, Conj. J, Bloco B, Salas 301-309, Brasília/DF, 71.503-505-Brazil (jcampari((AT))tnc.org.br). Currently a little over 20% of Cerrado's original vegetation remains in fragments large enough to be viable ecologically and they are being rapidly converted to large-scale agriculture, despite the stringent environmental legislation that disciplines land use. Brazilian legislation mandates that properties conserve headwaters, riparian areas and wetlands as "Permanent Protection Areas" plus 20% more as "Legal Reserve Area/LRA." A license for land clearing can only be obtained once a landowner has had the LRA formally registered. This legislation has been widely ignored and not effectively enforced, primarily due to prohibitive costs of enforcement (government) and costs of compliance (farmers). From the farmer's perspective, there is no trade-off between conservation and production, simply because the law is not enforced, leading to a typical externality problem. To internalize the costs of externalities, we propose the implementation of a freely accessible, Internet-based monitoring system of land cover at the individual property level and (ii) the implementation of the Cerrado Grassland Exchange/CGE, a market-based mechanism that would allow farmers to bid for the places that would compensate their environmental liabilities. Conservation efficiency can be attained through the simultaneous use of a (a) flexible, market-based instrument (CGE), (b) a tool associated with information gaps and transaction costs (the Internet-based Monitoring System) and (c) the regulatory framework (existing legislation) MARKET INCENTIVES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LAW COMPLIANCE IN MATO GROSSO: OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS TO ENVIRONMENTAL CERTIFICATION OF MEAT IN THE AMAZON. Almeida, Oriana T.; Stickler, Claudia M.; RIBEIRO, CARMELITA. IPAM, Av. Nazaré 669, Centro - 66.035-170 Belém, PA, Brazil, oriana((AT)) ipam.org.br, (OTA). Deforestation has increased dramatically in recent years in the state of Mato Grosso, where soil, climate, and infra-structure make ranching and soy production highly competitive. One of the most complex and strict environmental legislations for rural landholders is the Brazilian "código florestal"- forestry code- for the Amazon. Since 1995, this law requires the maintenance of 80% of the forest on rural properties as a legal reserve. Given the high percentage of land that must be left in as a legal reserve, most private owners argue that the law makes productive activities economically unviable and that compliance of the law was reduced. In the present work, we evaluated cost-benefits of investing in low-priced land in the Amazon where 80% of the forest cover is required versus investment in high-priced land from the savanna region of Brazil where required forest cover is 20%. Results show that the cost of the legal reserve in the Amazon comprises 38 to 100% of the activity profit while it represents only 5 to 15% of the activity profit in area of savannas. While it is important to evaluate the impact of increasing the legal reserve from 50 to 80% on the property, it is also important to evaluate the impact of cost increases in production to develop policies that compensate initiatives that seek to conserve the environment in the region. One such policy mechanism is the certification of meat. Society for Conservation Biology - Brasilia 2005 News index | RSS | News Feed Advertisements: Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing |
MONGABAY.COM
T-SHIRTS 
CALENDARS 
CANVAS BAGS 
|
|
|
