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Lamichhane S, Sun C, Gordon JS, Grado SC, Poudel KP. Spatial dependence and determinants of conservation easement adoptions in the United States. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 2021; 296:113164. [PMID: 34216904 DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2020] [Revised: 05/24/2021] [Accepted: 06/25/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
A conservation easement is a market-based instrument for environmental protection. It has achieved rapid growth in the United States over the past few decades. As of 2015, 1.75% of the country's total land was placed under the restriction of conservation easements. In this study, spatial dependence in adopting conservation easements in the United States and the underlying determinants are examined through a spatial econometric model. The spatial panel data covers 50 individual states and six five-year intervals from 1990 to 2015. The findings reveal that spatial correlation in adopting conservation easements across individual states has become stronger over the study period, and the indirect spillover effect for most covariates is as high as one-third of the total effect. In addition, conservation easements have been utilized to protect threatened or strained natural resources. Populations with higher income or better education generally have helped the development of conservation easements. Government programs and policies favoring conservation easements also have positive impacts on easement adoption. These results can aid policymakers, landowners, and easement holders to efficiently allocate resources in acquiring conservation easements and managing currently eased land.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sabhyata Lamichhane
- Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, GA, 30602, USA
| | - Changyou Sun
- Department of Forestry, Mississippi State University, MS, 39762, USA.
| | - Jason S Gordon
- Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, GA, 30602, USA
| | - Stephen C Grado
- Department of Forestry, Mississippi State University, MS, 39762, USA
| | - Krishna P Poudel
- Department of Forestry, Mississippi State University, MS, 39762, USA
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3
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Martinuzzi S, Radeloff VC, Higgins JV, Helmers DP, Plantinga AJ, Lewis DJ. Key areas for conserving United States' biodiversity likely threatened by future land use change. Ecosphere 2013. [DOI: 10.1890/es12-00376.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
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4
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Withey JC, Lawler JJ, Polasky S, Plantinga AJ, Nelson EJ, Kareiva P, Wilsey CB, Schloss CA, Nogeire TM, Ruesch A, Ramos J, Reid W. Maximising return on conservation investment in the conterminous USA. Ecol Lett 2012; 15:1249-1256. [PMID: 22913646 DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01847.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 63] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2012] [Revised: 04/02/2012] [Accepted: 07/16/2012] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Efficient conservation planning requires knowledge about conservation targets, threats to those targets, costs of conservation and the marginal return to additional conservation efforts. Systematic conservation planning typically only takes a small piece of this complex puzzle into account. Here, we use a return-on-investment (ROI) approach to prioritise lands for conservation at the county level in the conterminous USA. Our approach accounts for species richness, county area, the proportion of species' ranges already protected, the threat of land conversion and land costs. Areas selected by a complementarity-based greedy heuristic using our full ROI approach provided greater averted species losses per dollar spent compared with areas selected by heuristics accounting for richness alone or richness and cost, and avoided acquiring lands not threatened with conversion. In contrast to traditional prioritisation approaches, our results highlight conservation bargains, opportunities to avert the threat of development and places where conservation efforts are currently lacking.
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Affiliation(s)
- John C Withey
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Joshua J Lawler
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Stephen Polasky
- Department of Applied Economics and Department of Ecology Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
| | - Andrew J Plantinga
- Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
| | - Erik J Nelson
- Department of Economics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA
| | | | - Chad B Wilsey
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Carrie A Schloss
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Theresa M Nogeire
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Aaron Ruesch
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Jorge Ramos
- School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Walter Reid
- The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Los Altos, CA, USA
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Chan KMA, Hoshizaki L, Klinkenberg B. Ecosystem services in conservation planning: targeted benefits vs. co-benefits or costs? PLoS One 2011; 6:e24378. [PMID: 21915318 PMCID: PMC3167855 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024378] [Citation(s) in RCA: 82] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2010] [Accepted: 08/09/2011] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
There is growing support for characterizing ecosystem services in order to link conservation and human well-being. However, few studies have explicitly included ecosystem services within systematic conservation planning, and those that have follow two fundamentally different approaches: ecosystem services as intrinsically-important targeted benefits vs. substitutable co-benefits. We present a first comparison of these two approaches in a case study in the Central Interior of British Columbia. We calculated and mapped economic values for carbon storage, timber production, and recreational angling using a geographical information system (GIS). These ‘marginal’ values represent the difference in service-provision between conservation and managed forestry as land uses. We compared two approaches to including ecosystem services in the site-selection software Marxan: as Targeted Benefits, and as Co-Benefits/Costs (in Marxan's cost function); we also compared these approaches with a Hybrid approach (carbon and angling as targeted benefits, timber as an opportunity cost). For this analysis, the Co-Benefit/Cost approach yielded a less costly reserve network than the Hybrid approach (1.6% cheaper). Including timber harvest as an opportunity cost in the cost function resulted in a reserve network that achieved targets equivalently, but at 15% lower total cost. We found counter-intuitive results for conservation: conservation-compatible services (carbon, angling) were positively correlated with each other and biodiversity, whereas the conservation-incompatible service (timber) was negatively correlated with all other networks. Our findings suggest that including ecosystem services within a conservation plan may be most cost-effective when they are represented as substitutable co-benefits/costs, rather than as targeted benefits. By explicitly valuing the costs and benefits associated with services, we may be able to achieve meaningful biodiversity conservation at lower cost and with greater co-benefits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kai M A Chan
- Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
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Bode M, Probert W, Turner WR, Wilson KA, Venter O. Conservation planning with multiple organizations and objectives. CONSERVATION BIOLOGY : THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 2011; 25:295-304. [PMID: 21129029 DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01610.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of conservation organizations worldwide. It is now common for multiple organizations to operate in the same landscape in pursuit of different conservation goals. New objectives, such as maintenance of ecosystem services, will attract additional funding and new organizations to conservation. Systematic conservation planning helps in the design of spatially explicit management actions that optimally conserve multiple landscape features (e.g., species, ecosystems, or ecosystem services). But the methods used in its application implicitly assume that a single actor implements the optimal plan. We investigated how organizational behavior and conservation outcomes are affected by the presence of autonomous implementing organizations with different objectives. We used simulation models and game theory to explore how alternative behaviors (e.g., organizations acting independently or explicitly cooperating) affected an organization's ability to protect their feature of interest, and investigated how the distribution of features in the landscape influenced organizations' attitudes toward cooperation. Features with highly correlated spatial distributions, although typically considered an opportunity for mutually beneficial conservation planning, can lead to organizational interactions that result in lower levels of protection. These detrimental outcomes can be avoided by organizations that cooperate when acquiring land. Nevertheless, for cooperative purchases to benefit both organizations' objectives, each must forgo the protection of land parcels that they would consider to be of high conservation value. Transaction costs incurred during cooperation and the sources of conservation funding could facilitate or hinder cooperative behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Bode
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, University of Melbourne, School of Botany, Parkville, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
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7
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Lennox GD, Dallimer M, Armsworth PR. Landowners’ ability to leverage in negotiations over habitat conservation. THEOR ECOL-NETH 2010. [DOI: 10.1007/s12080-010-0103-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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8
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Davies ZG, Kareiva P, Armsworth PR. Temporal patterns in the size of conservation land transactions. Conserv Lett 2010. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263x.2009.00091.x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
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