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This paper estimates the opportunity costs of biodiversity conservation in Kenya from the potential net returns of agricultural and livestock production, and compares them with the net returns from tourism, forestry and other conservation activities. At the national level, agricultural and livestock production in the parks, reserves and forests of...
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... use surveys dating from 1981from -1986from (EcoSystems, 1987 give the hectares of individual crops within each zone, classified by management (e.g., commercial versus smallholder). The data come from aerial point sampling (Norton-Griffiths, 1988) and are strictly comparable within and between zones (Table 3). Livestock data from these same surveys have been augmented from Bekure et al. (1991) for zone 5 and from EcoSystems (1985) for zone 6. Livestock are classified by type (grade cattle, indigenous cattle and smallstock) and by management (stall fed, open grazing and ranching). ...Context 2
... calculate the opportunity costs by multiplying these areas by the average net returns for each zone (Table 4). We also calculate the potential gross revenues for the PRF land (from Table 4); and the potential human population, livestock population and hectares under cultivation (from the average densities in each zone, Table 3). This procedure matches exactly the ecological potentials of the PRF and non-PRF land. ...Similar publications
In continuance of a long-term population monitoring project, we conducted dawn call counts in the Pipar Pheasant Reserve in Annapurna Conservation Area in Nepal between 28 April and 5 May 1998. The aim of these counts is to obtain abundance indices for three Galliformes species in the area, for comparison with the results obtained periodically sinc...
In Europe, biodiversity conservation relies on the Natura 2000 network. However, it is often difficult to ensure the favourable conservation status of species and habitats due to scarce financial resources. Therefore, we examined the current management strategies and conditions of three Italian Natura 2000 sites based on a questionnaire and stakeho...
People enjoy a variety of ecosystem services, or benefits, from forests, including water purification, recreation, income from tourism, timber products, and the cultural and economic benefits from hunting, fishing, and gathering (Shvidenko et al. 2005). Across the Northern United States, growing human populations will place increased service demand...
Common land is widely recognized to be of high value for biodiversity conservation, which is often attributed to the maintenance of traditional patterns of land use. The decline in such traditions could represent a significant potential cause of biodiversity loss, and for this reason, livestock grazing is being widely reintroduced to common land as...
This study documents the different management and control measures developed and implemented by farmers to mitigate vertebrate pest attacks on crops and livestock around Lake Mburo National Park in Uganda. A semi-structured interview administered to 40 randomly selected park neighbours was supplemented with key informant interviews, a review of sec...
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... The second uncertainty is the lack of assurance of being able to maintain biodiversity in the face of the use of its components by humans (McNeely 1995). Thirdly, there is uncertainty about the success of achieving social support of conservation, thus ensuring the conservation of biodiversity not only within the conservation areas but also outside their boundaries (Ludwig, Hilbron & Walters 1993, IUCN 1994b, Norton-Griffiths & Southey 1995. ...
... The second uncertainty is the lack of assurance of being able to maintain biodiversity in the face of the use of its components by humans (McNeely 1995). Thirdly, there is uncertainty about the success of achieving social support of conservation, thus ensuring the conservation of biodiversity not only within the conservation areas but also outside their boundaries (Ludwig, Hilbron & Walters 1993, IUCN 1994b, Norton-Griffiths & Southey 1995. ...
... Nevertheless, in Japan, planning and environmental issues are addressed by different ministries with environmental constraints prevailing over the others [41]. Such right of way rules are important when dealing with land, as different uses correspond to different opportunity costs [42,43] and are able to generate conflicts between stakeholders with different interests [44], e.g., the private sector, especially when conservation is an option [3,45]. ...
Although conservation and development are two facets of sustainability, they are often placed in contradictory positions. In this context, planning systems are able to respond to investment pressure, especially in countries with underdeveloped institutional solutions for this purpose, and are consequently characterized by a shifting relationship between spatial planning and environmental protection. Although these issues have been relatively well conceptualized, the literature still lacks more in-depth analyses of selected case studies. In order to fill the gap, this study aimed to identify potential ways to protect the environment and natural values in urban areas from investment pressures in countries with less developed planning systems, based on a comparative Polish-Romanian perspective. The method consisted of comparing the national legal frameworks for environmental protection and spatial development and analyzing in detail two case studies from each country. The findings indicate that national protection is required in both countries to ensure the effective protection of natural areas situated within city administrative limits that provide important ecosystem services. Moreover, the results reveal the need for more research on similar areas using multi-scale interdisciplinary approaches and reviewing planning theory with respect to its efficiency in protecting nature.
... Indeed, as they restrict economic activities and limit or ban the extraction of natural resources, concerns over the possibility that PAs would endure poverty trap have been raised (Norton-Griffiths & Southey, 1995;Wilkie et al., 2006). Moreover, the management of PAs itself entails direct costs that conflict with other state-funded development programmes (Lindsey et al., 2018). ...
... Furthermore, the proxy that is adopted in this study for employment refers to the local establishments and the workers employed in the local establishments at municipality level (hence, disregarding the municipality they live in). Even with these caveats, our results further confirm that NPs are not linked to poverty traps, as the great majority of the literature finds (Norton-Griffiths & Southey, 1995;Wilkie et al., 2006). ...
The expansion of Protected Areas (PAs) is feared to negatively affect the local economy, as every PA, albeit to different degrees, entails restriction to the economic activities. The literature on the topic has started assessing what is the socio‐economic impact of PAs, mostly focusing on the Global South. The objective of this article is the analysis of the socio‐economic impact of three Italian National Parks (NPs), established in the 2000s, using a counterfactual approach based on both the Outcome Regression Diff‐in‐Diff and the Doubly Robust Diff‐in‐Diff combined with different propensity score‐based and Mahalanobis distance matching procedures. We find that the three Italian NPs have a robust and statistically significant impact on average income of residents in municipalities hosting them. Conversely, there is weak evidence that population and local establishments are positively affected, and touristic local establishments and employment are negatively affected by the three NPs. All together the results indicate that the three NPs have no negative effect on the socio‐economic dynamics of the territories impacted, although additional investigations are required to shed lights to the impact mechanisms. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... While mobile livestock herding is unlikely to disappear, and while the ongoing transition does not foreshadow any easily predictable or pre-ordained endpoint, tomato cultivation is transformative because it raises household revenue to much higher levels than pastoralism. It also undermines conservationist agendas, which commonly endeavour to make employment in wildlife conservation profitable so that pastoralists continue to engage in conservation-related strategies (Norton-Griffiths and Southey, 1995). Conservation NGOs, however, often cannot outcompete irrigated agriculture. ...
This study documents the causes and processes behind the uptake of crop cultivation by a Maasai community of southern Kenya which, until recently, was still devoted to full-time mobile livestock keeping. Based on the methods of comparative agriculture and a detailed quantification of household income from livestock and cash crops, a classification of farm units (n = 38) into nine production systems reveals that agro-pastoralism on the Mbirikani group ranch, which is situated between Amboseli and Chyulu Hills national parks, is now mainstream, and that crops can exceed 70% of household income. Microeconomic analysis also documents large disparities in household income, with irrigated tomato farms benefiting from access to a pipeline ranking highest in profitability. Overall, the pastoralist–peasant dichotomy ingrained in portrayals of East-African rural life has outlived its relevance, with the tomato currently being a key game changer. This growing appeal for agriculture, however, is threatening the wildlife conservation because the profitability of tomato cropping has begun to outcompete those employment alternatives. By promoting landscape fragmentation and water extraction, however, irrigated agriculture also undermines free movement of wild animals outside the parks, restricts access to the key resources they require, and exacerbates human–wildlife conflicts.
... In this sense, the opportunity cost, a key concept in economics (Wünscher et al., 2008), might be used to simulate the economic revenue earned by proposing an alternative land use over the areas compromised by both water bodies and PPA after the establishment of a given HPP. Opportunity cost has been evaluated successfully on a mountain county in southwest China for planting suitability (Liu et al., 2017), agricultural supply chain (De Laporte and Ripplinger 2019), and also for both environmental and biodiversity conservation purposes (Machado et al., 2016;Naidoo and Adamowicz 2006;Norton-Griffiths and Southey 1995;Schneider et al., 2011;Wünscher et al., 2008). In other words, what is economically more rentable from a municipality point of view. ...
In Brazil, electricity generation comes mainly from Hydroelectric Power Plants (HPP) that accounts for 65% of the national production. The establishment of a given HPP promotes significant land surface changes since vast areas are covered by the water reservoir. To mitigate such impact, a percentual of the produced energy is charged as a monetary environmental compensation (MEC). In this study, a WorldView-2 scene was used to delineate the flooded area. After, based on Landsat-5/TM and Landsat-7/ETM + scenes, we map the major land use and land cover classes before establishing an HPP in the Southern Santa Catarina Plateau (Southern Brazil). Then, based on the resulted land cover map, we address the MEC's effectiveness by simulating in a GIS environment the opportunity costs over the productivity of the agricultural areas lost by the HPP water reservoir. Agricultural statistics databases were consulted to obtain historical values and mean productivity of corn, soybean, and beef cattle. Results show that MEC was efficient for the timeframe of 2006–2018. The opportunity cost reveals a positive benefit value of US$4,738,862.03 (R$6,123,292.25) for the directed affected municipalities. In summary, MEC was more beneficial than maintaining agricultural activities. This research brought a simple methodology of low cost to evaluate a given HPP's effectiveness, from an economic point of view, for the directed affected municipalities. The presented method can be applied to other similar enterprises and other HPPs in Brazil.
... Protected areas serve as strongholds for biodiversity, and delineating new protected areas is an important conservation tool [16][17][18]. In some regions, protected areas have alleviated poverty [19]; however, in others, they have burdened local communities and resulted in competition for land and resources [20,21]. To achieve conservation goals, staffing and financial resources are necessary continued inputs [22], resulting in tradeoffs between the quantity of protected areas and the quality of their continued management. ...
As humans continue to alter Earth systems, conservationists look to remote sensing to monitor, inventory, and understand ecosystems and ecosystem processes at large spatial scales. Multispectral remote sensing data are commonly integrated into conservation decision-making frameworks, yet imaging spectroscopy, or hyperspectral remote sensing, is underutilized in conservation. The high spectral resolution of imaging spectrometers captures the chemistry of Earth surfaces, whereas multispectral satellites indirectly represent such surfaces through band ratios. Here, we present case studies wherein imaging spectroscopy was used to inform and improve conservation decision-making and discuss potential future applications. These case studies include a broad array of conservation areas, including forest, dryland, and marine ecosystems, as well as urban applications and methane monitoring. Imaging spectroscopy technology is rapidly developing, especially with regard to satellite-based spectrometers. Improving on and expanding existing applications of imaging spectroscopy to conservation, developing imaging spectroscopy data products for use by other researchers and decision-makers, and pioneering novel uses of imaging spectroscopy will greatly expand the toolset for conservation decision-makers.
... Some authors argue that the establishment of protected areas can alter socio-economic dynamics, increasing poverty conditions and conflict over the use of territory [3,12,13]. Limitations are imposed on future land-use options, with potentially significant opportunity costs [14], which are borne by local populations [15]. Meanwhile, other authors claim that these areas contribute to improving the quality of life of local populations, through income from tourism [16], access to ecosystem services [17], diversification of lifestyles [18] and/or modernisation of infrastructure [19]. ...
It is widely recognised that conservation policies in protected areas must also favour the development and viability of human populations. Although much research has focused on economic consequences, understanding the real impact of conservation on local populations requires a more holistic standpoint. Using quasi-experimental matching methods and a diachronic perspective, the biodemographic and socio-economic effects of Colombia’s National Natural Parks (NNPs) were evaluated (all in a context of internal conflict and post-conflict). The analyses were made for the set of NNPs and then grouped into four natural regions (Andes, Caribbean, Amazon-Orinoquía and Pacific) and two conflict intensities. Differences were found mainly for NNPs with low-intensity conflict, but only for biodemographic variables, not for socio-economic ones. Starting from a situation of disadvantage, a relative improvement in the conditions of the NNP municipalities was observed throughout the 13-year period in relation to the control group. Results should be taken with caution due to the conflict situation, but the lack of correlation between biodemographic and socio-economic aspects highlights the need to include more complex approaches in protected area management policies
... In Kitengela, harvests from cultivation are elusive, failing 3 out of every 4 years because of recurrent severe droughts (Kristjanson et al. 2002). In the Mara, it is likely that if the risk of wildlife depredation (Mukeka et al. 2019) is contained and wildlife conservation does not provide a more attractive income option, then cultivation could continue to spread in many areas where rainfall is adequate (Homewood and Rodgers 1991;Norton-Griffiths and Southey 1994;Homewood 1995;. Cultivation has good potential in parts of the Mara but has to contend with a high risk of wildlife depredation and low and erratic rains Sitati et al. 2003;Thompson et al. 2009). ...
Abstract We analyse social demography, livelihood diversification and land tenure among the Maasai people inhabiting Kenya (three sites) and Tanzania (one site) with contrasting land tenure policies. In Kenya, land was communally owned in the rural Amboseli, fully privatized in the peri-urban Kitengela in Athi-Kaputiei and partially privatized and communally owned in the rural Maasai Mara. In Tanzania, the government owned the land but granted user rights to local villages in rural Simanjiro in Tarangire-Manyara. We interviewed 100 households per site from May to July 2006. There were regional distinctions in social demography, livelihood diversification, hiring herding labour and settlement arrangements, portraying differential transition away from traditional pastoral Maasai society. The transition is most advanced in Kitengela located near Nairobi City, where privatization of land tenure in the 1980s triggered land sub-division, unprecedented land fragmentation and large-scale collapse of the commons, pastoralism and conservation. Land privatization and sub-division in Maasai Mara and Amboseli started in 2000s and were followed similarly by unprecedented fragmentation through fences and accelerated collapse of the commons, pastoralism and conservation, except where wildlife conservancies were later established. We found several differences at the household, regional and national levels. The average age of household heads was lower in Maasai Mara and Amboseli than in Kitengela and Simanjiro. The average number of wives per male household head was lowest in Kitengela, intermediate in Mara and Amboseli and highest in Simanjiro. Correspondingly, the mean number of children per family was lowest in Kitengela, intermediate in Mara and Amboseli and highest in Simanjiro. Household heads were more educated closer to urban centres. Household heads without formal education were thus most common in Amboseli, intermediate in Mara and Simanjiro and fewest in Kitengela. Livelihood diversification was marked in all the sites. Notably, cultivation was widespread and most of those interviewed were interested in crop cultivation. The average number of acres cultivated per household was far higher in Simanjiro than in all the other sites. The mean number of hired herders per household was higher in Kitengela, with the highest number of children enrolled in schools, than in the Mara, Amboseli or Simanjiro. The average number of households per settlement was highest in the Mara, intermediate in Amboseli and Simanjiro and lowest in Kitengela. The marked regional variation in social demography, livelihood diversification and land tenurial arrangements reflects underlying variation in proximity to urban centres, agro-climatological and national developmental and policy environments.
... In Kitengela, harvests from cultivation are elusive, failing 3 out of every 4 years because of recurrent severe droughts (Kristjanson et al. 2002). In the Mara, it is likely that if the risk of wildlife depredation (Mukeka et al. 2019) is contained and wildlife conservation does not provide a more attractive income option, then cultivation could continue to spread in many areas where rainfall is adequate (Homewood and Rodgers 1991;Norton-Griffiths and Southey 1994;Homewood 1995;. Cultivation has good potential in parts of the Mara but has to contend with a high risk of wildlife depredation and low and erratic rains Sitati et al. 2003;Thompson et al. 2009). ...
