Biodiversity value and the optimal location of forest conservation sites in Southern Finland

Safeguarding biodiversity has been one of the most important issues in environmental and forest policies since the 1990s. In Southern Finland, decisions concerning further actions for the preservation of forest biodiversity will be made in the coming years. To support policy making, we present a multi-regional model that is applicable in determining the economically optimal regional allocation of conservation sites. Three habitat quality models are evaluated to calculate habitat quality indices used as a surrogate for a biodiversity value in a forest sector model. The scenarios presented provide information about the economic impacts of conservation choices on the forest sector. The overall economic impacts of conservation depend on its scale and regional allocation. Conserving land with high biodiversity value can have less adverse impact on the forest sector than conservation of typical commercial forest sites. When optimizing conservation set-asides, we found that set-asides targeted to certain regions possessing higher/lower than average relative share of ecologically valuable land, caused lower/higher adverse economic impacts on the forest sector. Because it is expensive to search land suitable for conservation, these regions could be respectively favoured/avoided when asking forest owners to offer their land for the new conservation program in Southern Finland, which will be based on voluntariness.     

由单一走向多样：平原农业区生物多样性 保护的规划途径——以辽宁省黑山县为例

平原农业区的生产和土地利用方式严重影响区域的 生物多样性,利用融合多学科的景观空间规划构建有效的评价 方法和格局优化模式以实现多样化的生境保护和恢复,提升生 物多样性具有重要的作用。以辽宁省黑山县为例,首先梳理了 平原农业区对于生物多样性威胁的机制和研究的框架;其次识 别平原农业区的特殊生境类型,使用景观格局指数和InVEST 模型的生境质量评价构建多尺度生境质量评价机制;同时使用 基于图论和电路理论的Linkage Mapper软件,识别和分级 空间中的重要生态源地、潜在廊道及廊道上的关键夹点区域。 结果显示,农业景观中空间异质性和连接性影响生物多样性; 研究区有主要生境23类,整体生境质量较差,农田面积较大 是造成该问题的主要原因;识别出核心斑块33个,重要廊道 34条,通过与卫星图比照,廊道位置与线性生境重合;关键 夹点区域位于靠近农村居民点的自然生境上,故营造人类干扰 与生态平衡农村居住区是空间规划的重点;同时根据以上研究 提出了多尺度的空间规划途径,为平原农业区生境优化和生物 多样性保护提供了一定的理论参考。     

基于InVEST-MCR复合模型的城市 绿色空间生境网络格局构建研究

城市化进程的不断加快影响了城市绿色空间的生境 质量,城市生物多样性受到极大威胁。构建城市范围内的多物 种综合生境网络能够整合现有的城市绿色空间格局,促进生物 多样性保护与发育。以北京市丰台区为例,面向生物多样性保 护与城市绿色空间发展提出了基于InVEST-MCR复合模型的 城市绿色空间生境网络格局构建方法体系：即以生境类型为导 向选取区域内生物多样性保护的焦点物种,通过大数据选取焦 点物种的栖息源地,基于InVEST模型生境质量模块选取潜在 栖息地(汇)并生成生境网络构建阻力面,采用最小累计阻力 模型(MCR)构建丰台区城市绿色空间生境网络。研究结果明 确了丰台区的生境质量现状与未来生境网络发展脉络,为城市 绿色空间生境网络构建提供了新方法,为丰台区绿地空间格局 规划与生物多样性保护提供了参考框架。     

The efficiency of voluntary incentive policies for preventing biodiversity loss

Habitat loss is a primary cause of loss of biodiversity but conserving habitat for species presents challenges. Land parcels differ in their ability to produce returns for landowners and landowners may have private information about the value of the land to them. Land parcels also differ in the type and quality of habitat and the spatial pattern of land use across multiple landowners is important for determining the conservation value of parcels. This paper analyzes the relative efficiency of simple voluntary incentive-based policies in achieving biodiversity conservation objectives. This topic is important not just for biodiversity conservation but for any effort to provide a public good requiring coordination across multiple decision-makers who have some degree of private information. We develop a method that integrates spatially explicit data, an econometric model of private land-use decisions, landscape simulations, a biological model of biodiversity as a function of landscape pattern, and an algorithm that estimates the set of efficient solutions. These methods allow us to simulate landowner responses to policies, measure the consequences of these decisions for biodiversity conservation, and compare these outcomes to efficient outcomes to show the relative efficiency of various policy approaches. We find substantial differences in biodiversity conservation scores generated by simple voluntary incentive-based policies and efficient solutions. The performance of incentive-based policies is particularly poor at low levels of the conservation budget where spatial fragmentation of conserved parcels is a large concern. Performance can be improved by encouraging agglomeration of conserved habitat and by incorporating basic biological information, such as that on rare habitats, into the selection criteria.     

Conservation of biodiversity and economic development: The concept of transferable development rights

For ecological and economic reasons it is more cost effective to conserve habitats rather than species, and hence biodiversity conservation becomes a land use issue. Since in developing countries, land is the most important productive asset, the opportunity costs of conservation are forgone development, while the benefits from conservation are distant and largely external to the host country. The concept of transferable development rights (TDRs), which has been extensively applied to conservation of historical buildings in urban areas, is extended and adapted here to the conservation of biodiversity, both within a country and globally. Creation of a market for TDRs makes effective the latent demand for and supply of biodiversity conservation and generates benefits for both the supplier (developing countries) and the demander (developed countries). The paper explores the conditions and public interventions necessary for the creation of an active market for TDRs. It also proposes a number of mechanisms such as credits and offsets for purchase of TDRs against domestic regulations and conservation taxes in the developed countries.     

不同光照条件下城市绿地蜜粉源植物 对天敌昆虫种群的影响

蜜粉源植物具有保育天敌昆虫的重要功能,城市绿地 中针对性地应用蜜粉源植物,将有助于激活绿地生态系统的自 我调控机制,提升绿地生态系统的稳定性。选择以夏至草为地 被层优势种的草地(100%自然光)、疏林草地(50%自然光)、 林下草地(25%自然光)及裸地(100%自然光)为研究样地,采 用黄板诱集的方法对样地中自然天敌种群进行研究,分析不同 光照条件下蜜粉源植物对天敌昆虫种群的影响。获得的天敌昆 虫标本分属瓢虫、草蛉、食蚜蝇和寄生蜂4类,且以瓢虫和寄生 蜂为优势种群。研究表明：天敌数量方面,草地极显著多于裸 地(p<0.01),显著多于林下草地(p<0.05);疏林草地显著多 于裸地(p<0.05)。天敌种群丰富度指数和多样性指数呈现出草 地>裸地>疏林草地>林下草地的规律;均匀度指数呈现出裸地>草 地=疏林草地>林下草地的规律。光照强度对天敌丰富度指数、 多样性指数、均匀度指数及优势天敌中的瓢虫数量具有极显著 影响(p<0.01)。为提升天敌昆虫多样性,应优先在全光照环境 下种植蜜粉源植物;为有效进行多异瓢虫、龟纹瓢虫等瓢虫类 天敌的招引,应优先选择阳性或中性蜜粉源植物并将其种植于 全光照或半光照环境中,乔木宜作上木,灌木与地被植物宜植 于林缘或疏林中。     

国家重点生态功能区自然资源资产评估框架与方法研究

针对不同类型自然资源资产,构建自然资源资产核算指标体系和评价方法,是国家重点生态功能区自然资源资产评价与管理的迫切需求。论文从土地覆盖和利用、林业、草原、土壤、水、矿物等自然资源和生物多样性等方面入手,在全面评估县、市、省和国家级自然资源资产核算相关数据的可用性和质量基础上,基于国际和中国已有的做法,包括SEEA-2012账户、国家统计局提出的土地—森林—水账户等,制定可纳入国家重点生态功能区自然资源资产评估框架的账户清单;从存量和流量核算、自然资源资产和生态系统资产的经济与生态功能、实物量等角度开发了一套评估方法工具。选择秦巴生物多样性生态功能区作为试点地区进行了案例应用研究,检验评估方法的合理性与适用性。该研究方法可为相关重点生态功能区进行自然资源资产评估核算与管理提供重要技术方法支撑。     

Conserving biodiversity with tradable permits under changing conservation costs and habitat restoration time lags

Tradable permits are a common environmental policy instrument that has recently been applied also to the conservation of biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation differs in many respects to the classical applications of tradable permits like emissions control. One particularity is that, even if the permit system maintains a constant total amount of species habitat, habitat turnover (the destruction of a habitat and restoration elsewhere) affects the ecosystem. Another particularity is that the restoration of habitats often takes much time, leading to time lags between the initiation of restoration activities and the time when restored habitat is available for trading. We use an agent-based model of a tradable permit market to study the influence of heterogeneous and dynamic conservation costs and habitat restoration time lags on key variables of the market, such as the costs incurred to the market participants and the amount of habitat turnover. Our results show that there may be trade-offs between these key variables. We also find that restoration time lags can lead to fluctuations in permit prices that reduce the efficiency of the permit market. We conclude that temporal lags deserve a careful analysis when implementing tradable permit systems for the preservation of natural habitats and biodiversity.     

Structural Adjustment Programme, Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss in Ghana

An empirical investigation is undertaken into the impact of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on forest and biodiversity loss in Ghana between the period 1965–1995. In the first part of the analysis, a four-equation recursive model, consisting of forest loss, cocoa land, maize land and timber production equations, is employed to examine the impact of the SAP on forest loss. The first equation is a function of the last three, and the last three are functions of mainly prices. Piecewise linear and switching regression approaches are used to distinguish between the influence of the post from the pre-adjustment impacts. These results together with a specie-forest area relationship are used to investigate the impact of the SAP on biodiversity loss. The overall results indicate that cocoa land expansion and timber production, but not maize land expansion, are the significant causes of forest loss in Ghana. However, the impact on forest loss in the post-adjustment period was reduced. The rate of biodiversity loss also reduced in the post-adjustment period. Changes in relative output and input prices due to the SAP may have played a significant role in the reduced impact of agricultural and timber related deforestation and biodiversity loss in the post-adjustment period.     

中国矿业能源生态效率差异及动态演进

基于中国矿业2007—2016年的面板数据,使用SBM窗口分析法测算我国采矿业的静态能源生态效率,通过Malmquist-Luenberger指数分析我国采矿业能源生态效率的动态演进特征,研究发现：①采矿业整体能源生态效率水平偏低,离最优生产前沿还有47.3%的改进空间,6个分行业差异显著。矿业投入的冗余率较高。②矿业整体能源生态效率年均增长8%,技术效率和技术进步分别增长-2%和11%。6个分行业的能源生态效率都在上升,但程度不同,在驱动效率提升方面也各有差异。     

自然圣境的生态保护功能及其实现路径

自然圣境是对人类具有特殊精神意义的自然区域,自然圣境除了具有精神文化价值,在生态环境保护方面也发挥了重要作用。自然圣境的生态保护功能主要体现在保护生态环境和自然资源以及为珍稀濒危物种提供栖息地。目前,因旅游和工程项目过度开发、土地利用变化、所属权转移、价值观念的变化和自然环境变迁等因素,造成自然圣境的生态保护功能面临挑战。面对这些问题,应加强对自然圣境及其生态保护功能的正确认知,将自然圣境纳入保护地和生态补偿体系当中,发挥自然圣境生态文化的灵魂作用,并制定与自然圣境保护相关的法律法规。     

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND BIOTECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS

This paper assesses the role of Biotechnology Development Agreements (BDAs) in creating incentives to conserve biodiversity. A major cause of species loss is the conversion of tropical forests to crop and pasture land. Biodiversity conservation, therefore, fundamentally depends on the economics of agricultural land use in developing countries. BDAs can play only a limited role in a comprehensive strategy to increase incentives for biodiversity conservation. Policymakers must examine biodiversity policies in the broader context of land tenure, rural poverty, and agricultural development in tropical countries .     

The Output-inflation Tradeoff and Central Bank Reform: Evidence From New Zealand

The 1989 Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act provides a natural experiment in which the effects of institutional change on economic relationships can be studied. The Act set price stability as the single objective of monetary policy and gave the Bank great independence. Reforms of this nature may lead to a greater short-run output-inflation tradeoff by altering optimal stabilisation policy and wage indexation. Allowing for environments where 'learning' about the new regime is assumed to be rapid as well as slow, we find that a large rise in the New Zealand tradeoff has occurre d since implementation of the Act     

Alternative targets and economic efficiency of selecting protected areas for biodiversity conservation in boreal forest

We examine the relative merits of alternative forest biodiversity targets, which give different weights to species according to their conservation status and abundance. A site selection framework is used for choosing the habitat-protection strategy that maximizes biodiversity subject to an upper bound on funding with six alternative conservation goals. By using Finnish data on old-growth forests, we found that alternative conservation goals yield different benefit-cost tradeoffs. Goals relying on complementarity between protected stands result in great marginal costs at a high conservation level. Therefore, under these conditions it may not be economically efficient to establish a large conservation network to protect all species in a given area. In contrast, a large conservation network is more likely to be justified when the habitat-protection strategy focuses on species abundance. The trade-offs between alternative objectives are explicitly measured by incrementally varying the weights given to the species. We found that the targets for all species representation and species abundance can largely be met simultaneously. Protecting red-listed species reduces overall species coverage and species abundance particularly at low budget levels.     

Do we really care about Biodiversity?

This paper addresses from an economic perspective the issue of global biodiversity conservation. It challenges the perception that the world really cares a great deal about biodiversity and is prepared to pay the full cost of maintaining this stock of natural capital. Despite the existence of a plethora of international agreements there still seems to be a global ‘deficit of care’ surrounding efforts to combat challenges such as those posed by global warming and biodiversity conservation. More light can be thrown on the degree of care by measuring both the actual expenditures and the stated willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation. However, actual expenditures are much lower than willingness to pay estimates recorded in the published literature. Using the criteria that the ‘right’ amount of conservation effort is one where the marginal economic benefits from conservation just equal the marginal costs of conservation, the paper explores the biodiversity conservation conundrum and concluded that, on the available evidence, the world does not care too much about this natural capital stock and bequests to future generations. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Does a voluntary conservation program result in a representative protected area network?: The case of Finnish privately owned forests

Conservation contracting has attained growing interest worldwide as a tool for protecting biodiversity in privately owned lands. In this policy, landowners receive payments from an environmental agency in exchange for land use practices that contribute to the supply of biodiversity. This approach may result in a conservation network which does not cover all focal ecological characteristics, because landowners determine the supply of potential targets. In addition, the contracts are typically allocated by using a scoring method that is not giving information on the representativeness of the species composition of the sites. In this study, we investigated what is the performance of a voluntary conservation program in selecting sites that would maximize the number of specific target species in the selected conservation network subject to a given budget constraint. We focused on the Finnish pilot program named Trading in Natural Values (TNV). Our data consisted of 56 mature stands covering both stands that were offered to the TNV program and stands that were not offered. All the stands were surveyed for specific groups of wood-inhabiting fungi and epiphytic lichens that can be considered as good surrogates for forest species diversity.Our results showed that the participation in the TNV program was large enough to meet the ecological goals, because the offered targets uncovered only two of the 73 surveyed species, and the cost-effective conservation network included only a few targets that were not offered in the pilot program. However, the contract allocation method used in the TNV could be improved, because many ecologically valuable targets that were offered to the program were not accepted. In general, it could be justified to survey some indicator species, which would be relatively easy to identify, to maximize species coverage in contract allocation. Surveying indicator species causes some extra costs, but these are likely to be minor compared with the costs savings in opportunity costs, due to the improved targeting of protected areas.     

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL DILEMMAS

Rapid economic growth in the Asian-Pacific region provides economic hope for the region's low-income countries but raises international environmental dilemmas and could be unsustainable. The strong international and Asian political support for Asia's economic growth often makes little mention of the environmental issues involved. The natural resources water, air, and soils as well as Asia's conservation of living resources and maintenance of biodiversity are important environmental issues. Tourism development—especially ecotourism—could combine economic development and conservation, but as Asian examples illustrate, it has limitations. Other environmental influences include the rapid urbanisation of Asia and the likelihood of increased international and transboundary conflicts over use of natural resources as economic growth in Asia proceeds. Markets and market reforms are not sufficient to deal with Asia's economic problems. Institutional and other reforms also are needed. One must reject the view that economic growth neglecting the environment is acceptable even in low-income countries. Polluting and degrading the environment now and repairing it later is a dangerous policy to follow, particularly for larger Asian countries. In fact, a strong case exists for high-income countries to support the environmental conservation efforts of low-income countries.     

Eco-certification of non-timber forest products in China： addressing income generation and biodiversity conservation needs

Non-timber forest products（NTFPs） can play a key role in sustainable rural development due to their ability to support rural livelihoods while of their role and potential in conservation and development remains weak. Studies have pointed to important knowlidge gaps that may lead to serious exploitation and unsustainable use of the nanral resource ＂NTFP＂ in China. such as（I） lack of basic lknowledge on germplasm and non-existing or incomplete inventory.（2）no in-depth and long-term monitoring and institutional arrangements to ascertain sustainable extraction levels,（3）insufficient market transparency for communities.（4）incomplete knowledge of NTFP domestication and ist effects on product quality and price and the conservation of wild sources, and （5）no existing research on the full length of the commodity chain for major non-timber forest prochucts and the various actors in the chain. remote mountain regions through the sustainable management of NTFPs. The potential and challenges of oraanic,ecological and Fairtrade certification schemes in the context of smallholder farmers are discussed in more detall.     

Socioeconomic predictors of forest use values in the Peruvian Amazon: A potential tool for biodiversity conservation

Conservation is a crisis discipline requiring rapid action with limited funds. This study examines the potential of socioeconomic variables to predict forest use values. If natural resource use can be predicted from socioeconomic data, conservation planners could rapidly identify and focus conservation programs on the sectors of local populations that most intensively utilize local flora and fauna. Families in three communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon were surveyed over a 6-month period. Data were collected on use of flora and fauna from six locally determined use categories (food, medicine and poisons, wood, weavings, adornments, and “other”) in forest types of three age classes (fallow fields—very young forests, young secondary forests, and old secondary forests). Forest use values were the dependant variables calculated in $/ha/year. Socioeconomic variables included: age, education, family size, residence time, land worked, land owned, number of fishing nets, chickens, pigs, cows, and/or mules owned (all proxies for productive assets), and level of ecological knowledge (ability of informants to correctly identify forest species and answer basic questions about their biology). Ordinary least square multiple regressions were run independently for each forest type. Regressions were also run separately for the two most valuable use categories, food and wood. Low R² adjusted values (all < 0.3) reflect the difficulty in predicting human behavior due to confounding variables and complex interactions. Residence time and a household's community of residence were the most significant predictors of forest use values. Households in Vista Alegre, the community with the highest density of people and smallest landholdings per household, extracted the highest value of forest products per hectare. The longer a family stayed in any community the higher the value of forest goods they extracted. If families that lived in an area longest are the most intensive extractors of forest products, they should be a major focus for conservation programming. In addition, the higher value of products extracted from forests by some families may make them more open to strategies seeking to protect long-term viability of the resources they utilize. The importance of residence time also indicates that planners need to account for changes in the resource use patterns of stakeholders over time.     

Land tenure differences and investment in land improvement measures: Theoretical and empirical analyses

This article develops a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between land tenure arrangements and households' investment in soil-improving and conservation measures. It then analyzes this relationship with a multivariate probit model based on detailed plot-level data from villages in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana. A major hypothesis tested is that investment in productivity-enhancing and conservation techniques are influenced by land tenure arrangements. The theoretical analysis and empirical results generally reveal that land tenure differences significantly influence farmers' decisions to invest in land-improving and conservation measures. The findings also show that tenure security does affect farm productivity.