Economic incentives for rain forest conservation across scales

Science

Volumn 288, Issue 5472, 2000, Pages 1828-1832

  Kremen, C ^a   Niles, J O ^a   Dalton, M G ^a   Daily, G C ^a   Ehrlich, P R ^a   Fay, J P ^a   Grewal, D ^a   Guillery, R P ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ECONOMIC ASPECT; ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING; ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION; FOREST; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; PRIORITY JOURNAL;

AGRICULTURE; CARBON; CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES; COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS; DEVELOPED COUNTRIES; DEVELOPING COUNTRIES; ECOSYSTEM; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; INDUSTRY; MADAGASCAR; TREES;

EID: 0034625546     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5472.1828     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. Food and Agricultural Organization, State of the World's Forests (Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, 1999).
2. J. T. Houghton et al., Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change: Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1995).
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5. In the mid-1990s, tropical deforestation caused ∼1.65 ± 0.4 Gt of C emissions per year (19 to 29% of annual carbon flux), while fossil-fuel emissions accounted for ∼5.5 ± 0.5 Gt/year [S. Brown et al., in Climate Change 1995: Impacts, Adaptations and Mitigation of Climate Change: Scientific-Technical Analyses, R. T. Watson, M. C. Zinyowera, R. H. Moss, Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1996), pp. 774-797.
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8. D. Pearce and K. Brown, in The Causes of Tropical Deforestation, K. Brown and D. W. Pierce, Eds. (Univ. of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, Canada, 1994), pp. 2-26; J. J. Hardner, P. C. Frumhoff, D. C. Goetze, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, in press.
9. R. Kramer, C. van Schaik, J. Johnson, Last Stand: Protected Areas and the Defense of Tropical Biodiversity (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1997).
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12. I. Raymond, thesis, Université d'Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar (1995).
13. J. N. Rakotoarisoa, thesis, Université d'Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar (1997).
14. R. Lemaraina, C. Kremen, P. Guillery, unpublished data.
15. Three percent was the low value used for sensitivity analyses to compare with the literature on global warming [W. D. Nordhaus, Science 258, 1315 (1992)].
16. World Bank, 1993 Evaluation Results: A World Bank Operations evaluation Study (World Bank, Washington, DC, 1993).
17. interest rates in Madagascar varied between 5 and 22.8% (December 1997; C. Ramilison, personal communication); volatility is also demonstrated by the World Bank's inability to estimate nominal interest rates [ World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1996)]. See also P. Barreto, P. Amaral, E. Vidal, C. Uhl, For. Ecol. Manage. 108, 9 (1998); J. Hardner and R. Rice, "An assessment of the economic opportunites for forest resource use in Suriname" (Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, 1999).
18. interest rates in Madagascar varied between 5 and 22.8% (December 1997; C. Ramilison, personal communication); volatility is also demonstrated by the World Bank's inability to estimate nominal interest rates [ World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1996)]. See also P. Barreto, P. Amaral, E. Vidal, C. Uhl, For. Ecol. Manage. 108, 9 (1998); J. Hardner and R. Rice, "An assessment of the economic opportunites for forest resource use in Suriname" (Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, 1999).
19. interest rates in Madagascar varied between 5 and 22.8% (December 1997; C. Ramilison, personal communication); volatility is also demonstrated by the World Bank's inability to estimate nominal interest rates [ World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1996)]. See also P. Barreto, P. Amaral, E. Vidal, C. Uhl, For. Ecol. Manage. 108, 9 (1998); J. Hardner and R. Rice, "An assessment of the economic opportunites for forest resource use in Suriname" (Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, 1999).
20. interest rates in Madagascar varied between 5 and 22.8% (December 1997; C. Ramilison, personal communication); volatility is also demonstrated by the World Bank's inability to estimate nominal interest rates [ World Bank, World Development Report 1996 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1996)]. See also P. Barreto, P. Amaral, E. Vidal, C. Uhl, For. Ecol. Manage. 108, 9 (1998); J. Hardner and R. Rice, "An assessment of the economic opportunites for forest resource use in Suriname" (Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC, 1999).
21. Further descriptions of the industrial logging scenario, the other opportunity-cost models, and the ICDP valuation are available at Science Online at www. sciencemag.org/feature/data/1047676.shl.
22. Like those in many developing countries, Madagascar's forestry department lacks the resources to police large-scale operations or capture all rents to which it is entitled. See also The Asia Pacific Action Group, "The Barnett Report" (The Asia Pacific Action Group, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 1990); E. Barbier, J. Burgess, J. Bishop, B. Aylward, in The Causes of Tropical Deforestation, K. Brown and D. W. Pierce, Eds. (Univ. of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, Canada, 1994), pp. 271-295.
23. A. G. Johns, Timber Production and Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Rain Forests (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1997).
24. Mise en Compatibilité des Investissements avec l'Environnement (MECIE), Decret No. 95-377. The International Tropical Timber Organization also has a goal of achieving trade in sustainably managed timber by 2000 [Asia Pacific forestry Sector, "Asia-Pacific Forestry towards 2000" (Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome and Bangkok, 1998)].
25. 3/ha per year [I. A. Bowles, R. E. Rice, R. A. Mittermeier, G. A. B. da Fonseca, Science 280, 1899 (1998)] to manage the forest sustainably on a 60-year rotation, reducing productivity/hectare to 40%. Forbidding logging on high slopes and within 100 m of streams would reduce the logging area by 44%, but improved efficiency from planned logging operations (∼22%) would offset the area reduction [see P. Barreto et al. in (16)]. We assumed that the concessionaires would succeed in preventing slash-and-burn farming in 70% of the concession. For further details, see (17).
26. M. C. Hatchwell, personal communication.
27. Figures are rounded in the text to avoid false precision.
28. D. M. Wolfire, J. Brunner, N. Sizer, forests and the Democratic Republic of Congo (World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, 1998).
29. J. Brunner, K. Talbott, C. Elkin, Logging Burma's Frontier Forests: Resources and the Regime (World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, 1998); see also references in (18).
30. 2). See also (17).
31. S. Fankhauser, Valuing Climate Change: The Economics of the Greenhouse (Earthscan, London, 1995). For the year 1995, 50% of simulation runs estimated an optimal carbon tax >$20/t C, and optimal tax levels associated with a given probability increased each year [T. Roughgarden and S. H. Schneider, Energy Policy 27, 415 (1999)].
32. S. Fankhauser, Valuing Climate Change: The Economics of the Greenhouse (Earthscan, London, 1995). For the year 1995, 50% of simulation runs estimated an optimal carbon tax >$20/t C, and optimal tax levels associated with a given probability increased each year [T. Roughgarden and S. H. Schneider, Energy Policy 27, 415 (1999)].
33. 2 C equivalents [P. M. Fearnside, Climatic Change 35, 321 (1997)]. We further assumed that release of carbon would be amortized over 10 years. Due to the time value of money, this timed release reduced the NPVs of greenhouse gas conservation by ∼1.8 times.
34. R. Mittermeier, N. Myers, J. Thomsen, Conserv. Biol. 12, 516 (1998).
35. 2 of $2.6 for land use, cover change, and forestry projects; see S. Brown et al., in (5).
36. Population Reference Bureau, "World Population Data Sheet 1995" (Population Reference Bureau, Washington, DC 1997).
37. Although the best management practices scenario generates similar opportunity costs, it would be more difficult for Madagascar to implement than simple protection of the forest [see I. A. Bowles et al. in (Z1)], and therefore less likely to prevent deforestation reliably and to obtain carbon credits (36); nor would it provide the biodiversity benefits of strict conservation [J. Robinson, Conserv. Biol. 7, 20 (1993)].
38. For example, semi-arid savannahs [B. Walker, Envir. Dev. Forum 4, 204 (1999); see also references in (18)].
39. 2 Emissions: The Power, Transportation and Industrial Sectors, K. Robertson and B. Schlamadinger, Eds. (International Energy Agency, Graz, Austria, 2000).
40. S. H. Schneider, Climatic Change 39, 1 (1998).
41. Preventing deforestation is an emission reduction, whereas planting trees is a sequestration process. Currently, conserving forests has stronger legal status under the Clean Development Mechanism because it is an emission reduction. The Kyoto Protocol requires verification of real, measurable, voluntary, and long-term reductions. Costa Rica has evolved strategies for dealing with leakage and additionality [D. C. Coldberg, R. Castro, S. Mack, "Carbon conservation: Climate change, forests and the Clean Development Mechanism" (Center for International Law, Centro de Derecho Ambiental y de los Recursos Naturales, Washington, DC, 1998)]. Ultimately, however, industrialized countries will also have to reduce their own emissions in order to meet the goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
42. R. A. Kramer, D. D. Richter, S. Pattanayak, N. P. Sharma, J. Environ. Manage. 49, 277 (1997).
43. H. J. Ruitenbeek, Ecol. Econ. 6, 57 (1992)
44. We are grateful to C. Ramilison, I. Raymond, R. Lemaraina, B. Simeone, B. Delaite, and M. Hatchwell for providing pricing information and unpublished reports. We thank K. Chomitz, N. Myers, B. Delaite, P. Frumhoff, J. Hardner, G. Heal, J. Hellman, L. Goulder, J. McNeely, J. Paddack, D. Rice, R. Schawarze, S. Schneider, and P. Vitousek for discussions and/or critical readings of the manuscript. The Center for Conservation Biology, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Heinz Foundation, and the Morrison Institute for Population and Resource Studies supported the authors during this work. We appreciate the assistance of the Masoala Project, run by CARE International Madagascar and Wildlife Conservation Society under the guidance of the Direction des Eaux et Forets and the Association pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées.