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Trade-Offs Between Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Development in Five Tropical Forest Landscapes

Environmental Management volume 50, pages 633–644 (2012)Cite this article

Abstract

This study explores how conservation and development are interlinked and quantifies their reciprocal trade-offs. It identifies interventions which hold a promise to improve both conservation and development outcomes. The study finds that development trajectories can either be at the cost of conservation or can benefit conservation, but in all cases sustained poverty negatively affects conservation in the long term. Most scenarios with better outcomes for conservation come at a cost for development and the financial benefits of payments for environmental services (PES) are not sufficient to compensate for lost opportunities to earn cash. However, implementation of strategies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in locations with low population densities come close to overcoming opportunity costs. Environmental services and subsistence income enhance the attractiveness of conservation scenarios to local people and in situations where these benefits are obvious, PES may provide the extra cash incentive to tip the balance in favor of such a scenario. The paper stresses the importance of external factors (such as industrial investments and the development of the national economy) in determining landscape scale outcomes, and suggests a negotiating and visioning role for conservation agencies.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the Livelihoods and Landscapes Initiative (LLS) from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for their financial support for the research done in several of the study locations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Ecología, Módulo C/Despacho 208 Campus de Cantoblanco C/Darwin 2, Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Marieke Sandker & Manuel Ruiz-Perez

  2. Department of Agriculture and Ecology, University of Copenhagen, Challenge Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Copenhagen, Denmark

    Bruce M. Campbell

Authors
  1. Marieke Sandker
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  2. Manuel Ruiz-Perez
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  3. Bruce M. Campbell
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Correspondence to Marieke Sandker.

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Sandker, M., Ruiz-Perez, M. & Campbell, B.M. Trade-Offs Between Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Development in Five Tropical Forest Landscapes. Environmental Management 50, 633–644 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9888-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-012-9888-4

Keywords

  • ICDP
  • Participatory modeling
  • PES
  • REDD
  • Scenarios

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