Using technology to improve the management of development impacts on biodiversity

The mitigation hierarchy (MH) is a prominent tool to help businesses achieve no net loss or net gain outcomes for biodiversity. Technological innovations offer benefits for business biodiversity management, yet the range and continued evolution of technologies creates a complex landscape that can be difficult to navigate. Using literature review, online surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we assess technologies that can improve application of the MH. We identify six categories (mobile survey, fixed survey, remote sensing, blockchain, data analysis, and enabling technologies) with high feasibility and/or relevance to (i) aid direct implementation of mitigation measures and (ii) enhance biodiversity surveys and monitoring, which feed into the design of interventions including avoidance and minimization measures. At the interface between development and biodiversity impacts, opportunities lie in businesses investing in technologies, capitalizing on synergies between technology groups, collaborating with conservation organizations to enhance institutional capacity, and developing practical solutions suited for widespread use.     

中国蝶类生物多样性生存现状及其新的保护模式探索

中国地跨古北区和东洋区,蝴蝶生物多样性非常丰富。蝴蝶具有巨大的美学、经济和生态价值。但是由于生态环境的破坏和市场利益的驱动,使我国蝴蝶生物多样性资源遭受了严重破坏。指出了我国蝴蝶生物多样性资源所面临的主要威胁以及所采取的保护措施,提出了蝴蝶生物多样性资源保护和可持续利用双赢的新思路,以期达到蝴蝶资源保护和可持续利用的良性互动。     

生物多样性管理与农民土地权益保护

生物多样性管理经历了从个别物种保护、物种和栖息地保护到自然保护区保护的发展阶段。建立自然保护区已成为中国生物多样性管理的重要手段,但自然保护区的建立对当地居民的生计构成了潜在威胁。应当通过增加自然保护区的财政投入,完善自然保护区集体土地征用制度,实行自然保护区社区共管等措施,实现自然保护区管理与农民土地权益保护之间的和谐发展。     

Reducing tourism's threats to biodiversity: effects of a voluntary sustainability standard and training program on 106 Latin American hotels,lodges and guesthouses

The tourism industry can negatively affect wildlife, plants and natural ecosystems through habitat destruction, pollution, over-exploitation of natural resources and visitor impacts to sensitive ecosystems. One approach to mitigate such threats is the application of voluntary sustainability standards, supported by training of tourism enterprises and verified by external audits. The Rainforest Alliance standard defines 78 criteria (requirements) for sustainable environmental, social and business practices, and has been adopted by over 600 tourism enterprises – including hotels, lodges and tour boats – in 12 countries. We examined the performance of 106 hotels in six Latin American countries against 29 of the sustainable tourism criteria most directly related to biodiversity conservation. Independent audits were used to assess hotel performance at baseline followed by a repeat assessment after training, about two years later. Mean conformance with the 29 biodiversity criteria increased significantly during this interval, from 44% to 58%. Improvements were greatest for businesses in the lowest third of performance at baseline (laggards) and smallest for hotels in the highest third (leaders). The results indicate that a voluntary sustainability standard and training program can serve both to recognize existing good actors and to drive incremental improvement in enterprises that were previously less sustainable.     

On the Opportunity Cost of Crop Diversification

Distance functions are increasingly being augmented, with environmental goods treated as conventional outputs. A common approach to evaluate the opportunity cost of providing an environmental good is the exploitation of the distance function's dual relationship to the value function. This implies that the opportunity cost is assumed to be non‐negative. This approach also requires a convex technology set. Focusing on crop diversification for a balanced sample of 44 cereal farms in the East of England for the years 2007–2013, this paper develops a novel opportunity cost measure that does not depend on these strong assumptions. We find that the opportunity cost of crop diversification is negative for most farms.     

生态林业可持续发展的资金筹集

中国生态林业建设面临严重的资金问题,本文通过对我国生态林业发展的资金特点进行研究,分析筹资面临的困难和资金缺口,旨在探讨生态林业资金筹集渠道的财政方式和市场方式,为研究解决生态林业建设资金筹集问题提供思路。     

盐田旅游开发区生物多样性的多层次保护与利用研究

生物多样性作为自然风景旅游地的重要资源，其4个层次都对旅游开发有不同贡献。通过对深圳市盐田区生物多样性层次结构现状及旅游价值进行分析，确定多样性保护的敏感区域，提出以生态系统多样性管理和保护为基础来维护生物多样性各个层次旅游资源的可持续开发利用对策。     

The Value of Biodiversity in Pharmaceutical Research with Differentiated Products

Biologists and conservation advocates have expressed grave concern over perceived threats to biological diversity. ``Biodiversity prospecting' – the search among naturally occurring organisms for new products of agricultural, industrial, and, particularly, pharmaceutical value – has been advanced as both a mechanism and a motive for conserving biological diversity. Economists and others have attempted to estimate the value of biodiversity for use in new pharmaceutical project research. In this paper we apply a new approach to estimating values: we employ two models of competition among differentiated products. Each model confirms previous findings that the value to private researchers of the ``marginal species' is likely to be small. The models can have very different implications with respect to social values, however. These findings underscore the need for a better understanding of the true meaning of diversity.Resources for the Future     

Conservation finance and sustainable tourism: the acceptability of conservation fees to support the Tambopata National Reserve,Peru

Protected areas are key to the conservation of global biodiversity and ecosystem services; however, their success is contingent upon adequate funding. One possibility to increase funding for park management is to “sell” a wider suite of ecosystem services “produced” by protected areas, such as carbon sequestration. We conducted 420 tourist surveys to analyze willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem service benefits via a conservation fee in the Tambopata National Reserve in Peru. We also interviewed eight tour operators about their perceptions of the proposed fee. The average stated WTP was 15 USD. Sixty-six percent of tourists stated they would pay 10 USD or more, which, if actually paid, would have resulted in 318,000 USD for park management in 2015. Most respondents stated they would pay an additional fee if it supported biodiversity conservation or local ecosystem services, such as water, but less than 10% of tourists were motivated by carbon sequestration as a reason to pay the fee. Most tour operators supported the additional fee. Our findings suggest that tourists are willing to pay higher fees to support conservation but that interest in paying for additional ecosystem services from parks may not extend to global and intangible benefits such as carbon sequestration.     

Seeing the forest for the trees: tourism and the International Year of Forests

The year 2011 is the United Nations International Year of Forests. In addition to performing extremely significant environmental, economic, and social services, forests are also important tourism attractions in their own right and locations for recreation and tourism activities. The limited statistical data available suggest that there are billions of tourism and recreational visits to forests each year. This paper provides a global overview of biodiversity conservation, protected areas, recreational access, and management objectives in forests before outlining some of the main themes in the relationship between tourism and forests. It concludes that there is a need for a research effort on tourism and forests in order to provide greater recognition for the economic and environmental contributions of tourism in forest areas as well as the overall value of forests for health and wellbeing.