Biological conservation in dynamic agricultural landscapes: Effectiveness of public policies and trade-offs with agricultural production

Land use change and land management intensification are major drivers of biodiversity loss, especially in agricultural landscapes, that cover a large and increasing share of the world's surface. Incentive-based agri-environmental policies are designed to influence farmers' land-use decisions in order to mitigate environmental degradation. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes for biological conservation in a dynamic agricultural landscape under economic uncertainty. We develop a dynamic ecological economic model of agricultural land-use and spatially explicit population dynamics. We then relate policies (subsidies to grassland, taxation of agricultural intensity) to the ecological outcome (probability of persistence of a species of interest). We also analyze the associated trade-offs between agricultural production (in value) and biological conservation (in probability of persistence) at the landscape scale.     

Demographic pressure and natural resources conservation

A field survey was carried out in the villages of Nlobesse'e at the Western periphery of the Dja Biosphere Reserve, South Cameroon, to evaluate the various effects that the increase in the local populations exert on the conservation of the natural resources of the reserve. Survey results show that the population was increasing rapidly at 40.00/00 per annum, with 61.54% of the total inhabitants originating from other parts of the country. Despite the rapid population growth, the population of the Kaka and Baka ethnic groups also known as the pigmies who have been noted by ECOFAC (Ecosystème Forestière d'Afrique Centrale) for having a marked negative impact on the conservation of the natural resources (because they depend mostly on the natural resources of the reserve for their livelihood and practice very little or no agriculture) were decreasing at a rate of 6.2%. Probably they sought better hunting, gathering and collecting conditions elsewhere in the reserve. Animal proteins originating from the reserve provide most of the animal proteins consumed by the households and the entire population of Nlobesse'e demands 44.4 kg of “bush meat” per day. It was also noted that the local population practiced very little agriculture in the reserve. Hunting and fishing, activities that have been noted for having a negative influence on the conservation of biodiversity contributed 15.2% and 11.2%, respectively, of the total income of the households. Other sources of income included: wages earned from the agro-plantation that contributed 40.3%, farming 24.2%, commerce 3% and others 4.58%. Merchant middlemen also referred to as “buyam sellam” and individuals with no commercial interest were the two main relay agents responsible for transporting natural resources out of Nlobesse'e. It would have been expected that the increasing population combined to the high incidence of poverty in the region (per capita income of 225 FCFA or $0.3 per day) would have exerted a high sustainability pressure on the conservation of reserve resources. However, this was not the case because of an agro-plantation in the area that provided the local population with the necessary income to buy foodstuff and other needed resources from far away areas. To maintain this trend, it is recommended that other sources of income such as the creation of small-scale enterprises and ecotourism should be encouraged in and around biospheres reserves.     

Urban and rural attitudes toward municipal water controls: A study of a semi-arid region with limited water supplies

This study addresses the effectiveness of using pricing mechanisms, government-imposed constraints, or a hybrid, as a means of rationing municipal water. We try to test which policies would be most accepted among rural and urban communities in a semi-arid region of Texas that depend on both surface and groundwater sources for their municipal supplies. This study reveals that a hybrid conservation policy that includes mandatory restrictions, fines for overuse, and pricing increases could be more acceptable, and hence more efficient, than a policy that only consists of regulation. Moreover, there is not a significant dichotomy in policy preferences between rural and urban constituents; although those in rural communities would seem to appreciate far less regulatory policy than would urbanites.     

The impact of information-based interventions on conservation behavior: A meta-analysis

Interest in using information-based interventions to induce energy and water conservation has increased in recent years but have shown mixed evidence of their effectiveness. This paper seeks to answer two main questions - whether these programs are broadly effective in inducing conservation, and what are the most effective versions of these programs. Using a meta-analysis of 116 studies, we examine the effects of information-based interventions on residential customers' consumption of electricity, gas, and water. We find evidence of publication bias in this literature. After correcting for publication bias, meta-analysis results indicate that information-based interventions reduce consumption by an average of 6.24%, 95% CI [-10.72, -1.76]. In addition, we find that studies employing RCTs find smaller conservation effects, (-5.2%, 95% CI [−9.53, −0.51]). Our results show that the effectiveness of information-based interventions at the household level are significantly larger than those at the aggregate level (such as dorms and buildings). Finally, interventions with a shorter duration or with more frequent reporting show larger estimated effect sizes.     

CO2 emissions in Australia: economic and non-economic drivers in the long-run

Australia has sustained a relatively high economic growth rate since the 1980s compared to other developed countries. Per capita CO₂ emissions tend to be highest amongst OECD countries, creating new challenges to cut back emissions towards international standards. This research explores the long-run dynamics of CO₂ emissions, economic and population growth along with the effects of globalization tested as contributing factors. We find economic growth is not emission-intensive in Australia, while energy consumption is emissions intensive. Second, in an environment of increasing population, our findings suggest Australia needs to be energy efficient at the household level, creating appropriate infrastructure for sustainable population growth. High population growth and open migration policy can be detrimental in reducing CO₂ emissions. Finally, we establish globalized environment has been conducive in combating emissions. In this respect, we establish the beneficial effect of economic globalization compared to social and political dimensions of globalization in curbing emissions.     

The ghost of extinction: Preservation values and minimum viable population in wildlife models

The inclusion of a minimum viable population in bioeconomic modeling creates at least two complications that are not resolved by using a modified logistic growth function. The first complication can be dealt with by choosing a different depensational growth function. The second complication relates to the inclusion of the in situ benefits of wildlife into the analysis. Knowledge about the magnitude of the in situ benefits provides no guide for policy about conservation management. Simply knowing that people are willing to pay a large amount each year to protect a species says nothing about whether one should manage habitat to protect or enhance the species' numbers, unless the species is in imminent danger of extinction. If willingness to pay is to be a guide, it needs to be better tied to population numbers, especially the minimum viable population.     

Evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of biodiversity conservation spending

Evaluation of effectiveness and efficiency should be an integral component of biodiversity conservation strategies. We used Cost-Utility Analysis (CUA) and Threat Reduction Assessment (TRA) to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of individual Species Action Plans (SAPs) with regard to improving conservation status and reducing threats within the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. Spending was highly biassed towards vertebrates, in particular mammals and birds. Of 38 fully-costed SAPs, the top five most expensive SAPs accounted for almost 80% of the total money spent. Just over half of the SAPs studied had improved the conservation status of the species concerned, and one third of SAPs achieved at least a 50% reduction in threats. SAP cost was significantly positively related to improvement in conservation status but unrelated to threat reduction for that species. Effectiveness and efficiency were significantly correlated with one another in terms of threat reduction for different species, but there was no correlation between effectiveness and efficiency in terms of improving conservation status. Although conservation decisions should not be made solely on the outcome of such analyses, CUA and TRA can provide an important contribution to the evidence base to inform the development of more effective and efficient conservation strategies.     

The conservation against development paradigm in protected areas: Valuation of ecosystem services in the Doñana social-ecological system (southwestern Spain)

The ecosystems of the Doñana social-ecological system (southwestern Spain) provide numerous ecosystem services to society. We valued the most important ecosystem services through a market-based approach, revealed-preference and stated-preference methods to assess the conservation effectiveness of the Doñana Protected Area, with consideration of existing human activities in surrounding lands. We also analysed the spatial distribution of the ecosystem services beneficiaries and the scale of their related markets. We found a clear trade-off between the local and global market values of ecosystem services because landscape management outside of the Doñana Protected Area promotes the provision of ecosystem services associated with international markets. Our results suggest that a conservation against development model occurs in the Doñana social-ecological system, in which land use intensification takes place outside of the Protected Area borders as a result of promoting marketed ecosystem services, while biodiversity conservation is the main activity inside the Protected Area. We conclude that protected areas should be part of a larger-scale, adaptive landscape management strategy in which conservation planning should be the focal element in coordinating sectoral policies in the context of social-ecological systems.     

Aggregate infrastructure capital stock and long-run growth: Evidence from Finnish data

In this paper, Bayesian methods and the Finnish aggregate infrastructure capital series from 1860 to 2003 are used to explore how government infrastructure policy affects long-run output growth. We use Finnish data, since to the best of our knowledge the Finnish land and water construction investments series is the best available sufficiently long time series on aggregate infrastructure investments. The Finnish data provide strong and robust evidence indicating that permanent changes in government infrastructure policy have permanent effects on the growth rate of output.     

Beyond the average effects: The distributional impacts of export promotion programs in developing countries

Do all exporters benefit the same from export promotion programs? Surprisingly, no matter how obvious this question may a priori be when thinking of the effectiveness of these programs, there is virtually no empirical evidence on how they affect export performance in different parts of the distribution of export outcomes. This paper aims at filling this gap in the literature. We assess the distributional impacts of trade promotion activities performing efficient semiparametric quantile treatment effect estimation on assistance, total sales, and highly disaggregated export data for the whole population of Chilean exporters over the 2002-2006 period. We find that these activities have indeed heterogeneous effects over the distribution of export performance, along both the extensive and intensive margins. In particular, smaller firms as measured by their total exports seem to benefit more from export promotion actions.     

On the Cultural Transmission of Corruption

We provide a cultural explanation to the phenomenon of corruption in the framework of an overlapping generations model with intergenerational transmission of values. We show that the economy has two steady states with different levels of corruption. The driving force in the equilibrium selection process is the education effort exerted by parents which depends on the distribution of ethics in the population and on expectations about future policies. We propose some policy interventions which via parents' efforts have long-lasting effects on corruption and show the success of intensive education campaigns. Educating the young is a key element in reducing corruption successfully. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D10, J13.     

Poverty and biodiversity: Measuring the overlap of human poverty and the biodiversity hotspots

In an effort to prioritize conservation efforts, scientists have developed the concept of biodiversity hotspots. Since most hotspots occur in countries where poverty is widespread, the success of conservation efforts depends upon the recognition that poverty can be a significant constraint on conservation, and at the same time conservation is an important component to the alleviation of long-term poverty. In this paper we present five key socio-economic poverty indicators (access to water, undernourishment, potential population pressure, number living below poverty line and debt service) and integrate them with an ecologically based hotspots analysis in order to illustrate magnitude of the overlap between biological conservation and poverty. The analysis here suggests that the overlap between severe, multifaceted poverty and key areas of global biodiversity is great and needs to be acknowledged. Understanding the magnitude of overlap and interactions among poverty, conservation and macroeconomic processes is crucial for identifying illusive, yet possible, win-win solutions.     

Using traffic data to estimate wildlife populations

Wildlife populations are threatened worldwide by, among others, habitat fragmentation and hunting pressure. An important impediment for the large scale, national and regional, management of the populations is the difficulty to quantify population dynamics. The purpose of this study is to present a tool for such estimations which is based on available data in several countries; traffic load and traffic accidents with wildlife. An econometric model is developed, which accounts for landscape characteristics. It is applied to wild boar in Sweden, for which data on traffic load and accidents for different counties and years are available. Landscape characteristics are introduced with direct or indirect effects on population growth. The indirect landscape model gives the best statistical performance, and the results show relatively small differences in calculated intrinsic growth rate among counties but considerable differences in predicted population developments.     

Site accessibility and prioritization of nature reserves

Nature reserves not only protect habitat-stressed species but also provide recreation and welfare services to people. Therefore, site accessibility matters in reserve design. This study incorporates public accessibility, determined by urban populations and distances between urban areas and reserve sites, as an additional factor in conservation reserve design besides species representation and economic characteristics of individual sites. An optimization approach is introduced to determine a reserve network with maximum accessibility while satisfying specified representation targets under financial constraints. The paper also presents an empirical application of this approach to endangered/threatened birds in Illinois, USA, and analyzes the tradeoffs between ecological, economic, and social objectives of biological conservation. The results show that: i) the conventional minimal representation approach would result in a small reserve network, but this network would have poor accessibility; ii) public accessibility can be improved significantly by selecting alternative sites with the same amount of conservation budget; iii) further improvement in accessibility can be achieved by enlarging the network, but in this particular case the gains would be insignificant after the first few additional sites; and iv) a regionally integrated conservation plan, as opposed to decentralized conservation efforts, is beneficial for both species protection and social welfare.     

北京市农业节水再上新台阶的思考

北京市农业节水在取得显著成绩的同时 ,如何在 2 1世纪的征程上再上新台阶 ,关键是要总结经验 ,认真解决好节水形式单一、科学研究跟不上生产发展的要求以及管理滞后、机制不活、影响效益发挥等问题。本文对解决这些问题提出了一些思考。     

Aid,non‐traded goods,and growth

Abstract We examine the effects of foreign aid in a small recipient country with two traded goods, one non‐traded good, and two factors. Learning by doing and intersectoral knowledge spillovers contribute to endogenous growth. We obtain two main results. First, a permanent increase in untied aid raises (or lowers) the growth rate if and only if the non‐traded good is more capital intensive (or effective labour intensive) than the operating traded good. Second, a permanent increase in untied aid raises welfare if the non‐traded good is more capital intensive than the operating traded good; otherwise, it may raise or lower welfare.     

Risk management instruments for debt driven conservation efforts: The case of India's Project Tiger

Project Tiger has been India's premier case of conservation success. Since mid 1990s select Project Tiger Reserves in India were chosen for intensive funding by the Global Environment Facility, the International Development Agency (IDA) and the Government of India under the ‘India Eco-Development Project’. This project marked a modest shift towards debt based funding. The GEF Project has become a benchmark for tiger conservation in India both in terms of management outcomes and scale and scope of funding. However in the absence of large-scale budgetary support or self-generating income flows, it becomes difficult for the GEF type of project to be replicated in other tiger reserves of the country. Debt instruments hold promise as enablers of conservation finance. The paper proposes issue of ‘tiger bonds’ to meet the financial requirements of tiger reserves. Though attractive as a debt instrument, a ‘tiger bond’ could nevertheless entail interest rate and default risks.Bioprospecting activities form good revenue sources for tiger reserves to pay off their debts. However bioprospecting activities do not provide assured returns to tiger reserves. Pharmaceutical companies that prospect for genetic resources and practice ‘real options’ approach to R&D investment planning, adopt multi-phased investment systems and sequential searches that gives them the flexibility to abandon R&D projects. From the point of view of genetic resource providing entities like Project Tiger Reserves, the ‘postponement value’ generated by real options, enables a drug company to tap substitutes for the genetic resources that form the subject matter of bioprospecting contracts. To obviate possible repayment risks by tiger reserves, the paper advocates the institution of ‘put bonds’ as a risk management tool for Project Tiger Reserves in order to hedge themselves against loan defaults arising from possible loss in bioprospecting income. The paper also brings out the mechanics of the issue of tiger bonds in the Indian context. It is argued that a put bond not only hedges default risks but would also aid ‘value discovery’ and payment for ecosystem services as far as the Project Tiger Reserves of India are concerned.     

Optimal Dynamic Control of Visitors and Endangered Species in a National Park

To enable visitors to enjoy nature while protecting endangered species is the key challenge for national parks around the world. In our optimal dynamic control model, a park management maximizes tourism revenues and conservation benefits net of control costs by choosing optimal dynamic levels of conservation and visitor management. The optimization is constrained by an extended food chain model representing species-habitat-visitor interactions. We illustrate for a game bird in an Alpine national park that ecotourism can indeed lead to ecosystem degradation when the park management is more concerned about increasing tourism revenues than about achieving the conservation target and if the endangered species is unknown to most visitors. If, however, the park management is well aware of the potentially negative consequences of ecotourism and hence cares for species conservation, limited ecotourism can provide funding for species conservation which ensures population levels above the uncontrolled steady state.     

To settle or protect? A global analysis of net primary production in parks and urban areas

We test—at the global scale—the hypothesis that human beings tend to build settlements in areas of high biological productivity, and protect (as parks) areas of low productivity. Furthermore, we propose an alternative measure of the extent and effectiveness of the global protected areas network based on potential net primary production (NPP₀). The average NPP₀ in urban areas and parks is calculated and compared to the average NPP₀ of the geopolitical regions and biomes containing these areas. Additionally, human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) in parks is used as an indicator of the effectiveness of these protected areas. We find that in almost all regions of the world, humans have chosen to settle in the most productive areas. At the global scale, urban areas have considerably higher NPP₀ (592 g Cm^− 2 yr^− 1) than the global average (494 g Cm^− 2 yr^− 1), while parks have roughly average NPP₀ (490 g Cm^− 2 yr^− 1). Parks with an IUCN category of I-VI account for 9.5% of the planet's terrestrial NPP₀, compared to 9.6% of its terrestrial area. Although protected area and protected NPP₀ are nearly equal, this equivalence is diminished by HANPP within parks. Globally, the average HANPP in all protected areas is 14% of their NPP₀, and HANPP within parks increases as the park management category becomes less restrictive. Moreover, we find a positive correlation between HANPP in parks and the extent of urbanization in the surrounding region and biome. Area-based targets for conservation provide no information on either the quality of the areas we choose to protect, or the effectiveness of that protection. We conclude that NPP₀ and HANPP may provide an additional, useful tool for assessing the extent and effectiveness of the global protected areas network.     

能源消费、经济资本化与节能减排

本文借助面板协整技术考察能源消费与中国经济增长的关系,基于经济资本化视角经验分析中国节能减排战略的现实选择.研究结果显示:(1)能源消费与经济增长存在长期稳定关系,无论长期还是短期,“能源中性”假说均不成立;(2)地区间能源产出弹性差异较大,各地区适宜制定差别化的节能减排目标;(3)为增长而挖掘和重估各项资源经济价值的经济资本化模式不利于节能减排战略的实施.