旅游项目风险因素分析的生态系统观点

旅游业是一个关联度大、相关带动性强的经济性产业,因此其风险因素众多.从创新生态系统视角-对旅游项目的风险因素进行分析,可以将这些风险因素分为三类,项目自身风险、项目依赖风险和资源整合风险.     

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     

In search of marginal environmental valuations — ecosystem services in Finnish forest accounting

There is currently substantial interest in valuing various services provided by different ecosystems. Concurrently economists have ascribed substantial effort on expanding traditional forest accounting systems by environmental services. This paper contributes to curtailing the existing gap between green accounting theory and applications for valuing forest ecosystem services. The multitude of links between forest ecosystem services and economy are characterized by the theoretical model for forest-economy interactions. By utilizing recently updated data we also incorporate empirical value estimates of these services comparable to other goods into Finnish forest accounting system. Finally, we discuss some problems encountered and clarify the interpretation of some value estimates incorporated to national forest account.     

Definitions and progress of ecosystem health and ecological security

1. Introduction Development of human industrial civilization and predatory exploitation of natural resources have in- duced tremendous changes of ecological environment. In recent years, territorial and global environmental problems have increased, such as greenhouse effect, depletion of ozone, global warming, water scarcity, water pollution, acid rain, decrease of biodiversity, soil erosion desertification etc. These changes seriously intimidate the health and security of ecosystems, and dist…     

Integrating ecosystem services into conservation assessments: A review

A call has been made for conservation planners to include ecosystem services into their assessments of conservation priority areas. The need to develop an integrated approach to meeting different conservation objectives and a shift in focus towards human wellbeing are some of the motivations behind this call. There is currently no widely accepted approach to planning for ecosystem services. This study contributes towards the development of this approach through a review of conservation assessments and the extent to which they include ecosystem services. Of the 476 conservation assessments identified by a set of search terms on the Web of Science, 100 were randomly selected for this review. Of these only seven had included ecosystem services, while another 13 had referred to ecosystem services as a rationale for conservation without including them in the assessment. The majority of assessments were based on biodiversity pattern data while 19 used data on ecological processes. A total of 11 of these 19 assessments used processes, which could be linked to services. Ecosystem services have witnessed an increase in attention received in conservation assessments since the year 2000, however trends were not apparent beyond this date. In order to assess which types of ecosystem services and how they have been accounted for in conservation assessments, we extended our review to include an additional nine conservation assessments which included ecosystem services. The majority included cultural ecosystem services, followed by regulatory, provisioning and supporting services respectively. We conclude with an analysis of the constraints and opportunities for the integration of ecosystem services into conservation assessments and highlight the urgent need for an appropriate framework for planning for ecosystem services.     

Jointness in production and farmers' willingness to supply non-marketed ecosystem services

This paper highlights how farmers' willingness to supply non-marketed ecosystem services (ES) is influenced by whether or not the non-marketed ES are produced jointly with agricultural products. When marketed products and non-marketed ES share some production inputs the production relationships between the two may be complementary, competitive or substitutive. Using a cost minimization framework, it is shown how complementary relationships lead to costless voluntary provision of non-marketed ES (typically the case for ES that are supportive of provisioning ES for marketed farm products). It is also shown how competitive production relationships lead to provision of non-marketed ES at lower cost than when non-marketed ES are direct substitutes for farm products or are produced outside of agriculture. The paper closes by showing how the minimum willingness to accept (WTA) payment for ES that are complementary/competitive is less than or equal to the minimum WTA for the same ES produced in substitute or independent production relationships.     

Implementation of land and ecosystem accounts at the European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency has started the implementation of a programme of land use and ecosystem accounts, following the System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) guidelines of the United Nations. The purpose is to integrate information across the various ecosystem components and to support further assessments and modelling of these components and their interactions with economic and social developments. This programme reflects the increasing demand for environmental policy integration in Europe, both vertically through thematic policies as well as horizontally across policies in those sectors that contribute most to environmental impacts. The construction of land and ecosystem accounts is now feasible due to continuous improvements in monitoring, collecting and processing data and progress with the development of statistical methods that facilitate data assimilation and integration. The accounts are based on explicit spatial patterns provided by comprehensive land cover accounts that can be scaled up and down using a 1 km² grid to any type of administrative region or ecosystem zone (e.g., river basin catchments, coastal zones or bio-geographic areas). Land cover accounts have been produced for 24 countries in Europe and first results published in the European Environment State and Outlook2005 report of the EEA.¹     

Valuing ecosystem services: A shadow price for net primary production

We analyze the contribution of ecosystem services to GDP and use this contribution to calculate an empirical price for ecosystem services. Net primary production is used as a proxy for ecosystem services and, along with capital and labor, is used to estimate a Cobb Douglas production function from an international panel. A positive output elasticity for net primary production probably measures both marketed and nonmarketed contributions of ecosystems services. The production function is used to calculate the marginal product of net primary production, which is the shadow price for ecosystem services. The shadow price generally is greatest for developed nations, which have larger technical scalars and use less net primary production per unit output. The rate of technical substitution indicates that the quantity of capital needed to replace a unit of net primary production tends to increase with economic development, and this rate of replacement may ultimately constrain economic growth.     

Valuing ecosystem goods and services: a new approach using a surrogate market and the combination of a multiple criteria analysis and a Delphi panel to assign weights to the attributes

A new approach to valuing ecosystem goods and services (EGS) is described which incorporates components of the economic theory of value, the theory of valuation (USappraisal), a multi-model multiple criteria analysis (MCA) of ecosystem attributes, and a Delphi panel of experts to assign weights to the attributes. The total value of ecosystem goods and services in the various tenure categories in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) in Australia was found to be in the range AUD$188 to $211 million year⁻¹, or AUD$210 to 236 ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ across tenures, as at 30 June 2002. Application of the weightings assigned by the Delphi panelists and assessment of the ecological integrity of the various tenure categories resulted in values being derived for individual ecosystem services in the World Heritage Area. Biodiversity and refugia were the two attributes ranked most highly at AUD$18.6 to $20.9 million year⁻¹ and AUD$16.6 to $18.2 million year⁻¹, respectively.     

The ‘squeezed middle’: Identifying and addressing conflicting demands on intermediate quality farmland in Scotland

The growing demand for a wide range of private and public goods and services from a finite land resource is increasingly challenging for planners at local, regional, national and international scales. The Scottish Government's development of a Land Use Strategy has given salience to resolving conflicts and enhancing synergies in land use. In Scotland, the poorest quality farmland is often designated for nature and landscape conservation and the highest quality farmland often protected for food production. This means that many of the competitive pressures on land are experienced in what we term the ‘squeezed middle’. The paper identifies the multiple (and not exclusively economic) drivers of land use choices and, through an ecosystem services lens, explores three particular areas of land use conflict. These are (i) the continued high level of public support for farming, which has done little to address the problem of low farm incomes; (ii) the pressure to increase woodland planting on farm (and other) land; and (iii) conflicts associated with intensive game management, especially on sporting estates. Using the Scottish situation as an example, the heterogeneity of land use pressures means that there is a danger of the principles of the Land Use Strategy becoming lost in translation from national policy to practical land use decision-making. The appropriate scale for delivery of integrated ecosystem services may therefore be more local than current pilot projects, and may require more active participation of land managers. It may also require policy instruments that are more flexible in adapting to the local context, including payments for ecosystem services.