Maximising return on conservation investment in the conterminous USA

Withey, John C.; Lawler, Joshua J.; Polasky, Stephen; Plantinga, Andrew J.; Nelson, Erik; Kareiva, Peter; Wilsey, Chad B.; Schloss, Carrie A.; Nogeire, Theresa M.; Ruesch, Aaron S.; Ramos, Jorge; Reid, Walter V.

doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01847.x

Cited by 78 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Future work could focus on using these cost estimates in a national-scale evaluation of co-benefits. Withey et al (2012) have begun this work by examining the returns to land conservation in terms of species preservation. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New cost estimates for carbon sequestration through afforestation in the United States

Nielsen¹,

Plantinga²,

Alig³

2014

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If you wish to file a Civil Rights program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form (PDF), found online at http://www.ascr.usda.gov/ complaint_filing_cust.html, or at any USDA office, or call (866) 632-9992 to request the form. You may also write a letter containing all of the information requested in the form. Send your completed complaint form or letter to us by mail at U. This report provides new cost estimates for carbon sequestration through afforestation in the United States. We extend existing studies of carbon sequestration costs in several important ways, while ensuring the transparency of our approach. We clearly identify all components of our cost estimates so that other researchers can reconstruct our results as well as use our data for other purposes. Our cost estimates have five distinguishing features: (1) we estimate costs for each county in the contiguous United States; (2) we include afforestation of rangeland, in addition to cropland and pasture; (3) our opportunity cost estimates account for capitalized returns to future development (including associated option values) in addition to returns to agricultural production; (4) we develop a new set of forest establishment costs for each county; and (5) we incorporate data on Holdridge life zones to limit afforestation in locations where temperature and moisture availability prohibit forest growth. We find that at a carbon price of $50/ton, approximately 200 million tons of carbon would be sequestered annually through afforestation. At a price of $100/ton, an additional 100 million tons of carbon would be sequestered each year. Our estimates closely match those in earlier econometric studies for relatively low carbon prices, but diverge at higher carbon prices. Accounting for climatic constraints on forest expansion has important effects on cost estimates.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New cost estimates for carbon sequestration through afforestation in the United States

Nielsen¹,

Plantinga²,

Alig³

2014

Self Cite

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“…Because management capacity is constrained by time and resources, priority actions should be those that achieve the greatest benefits to biodiversity, as measured against the counterfactual, i.e. what would happen if resources were spent on an alternative action [39,40]. Actions that disrupt true synergies between stressors can have the greatest benefit to ecosystems because the counterfactual situation would be immensely worse [36,41].…”

Section: Are There Conservation Implications To Getting It Wrong?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Interactions among ecosystem stressors and their importance in conservation

2016

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Interactions between multiple ecosystem stressors are expected to jeopardize biological processes, functions and biodiversity. The scientific community has declared stressor interactions-notably synergies-a key issue for conservation and management. Here, we review ecological literature over the past four decades to evaluate trends in the reporting of ecological interactions (synergies, antagonisms and additive effects) and highlight the implications and importance to conservation. Despite increasing popularity, and ever-finer terminologies, we find that synergies are (still) not the most prevalent type of interaction, and that conservation practitioners need to appreciate and manage for all interaction outcomes, including antagonistic and additive effects. However, it will not be possible to identify the effect of every interaction on every organism's physiology and every ecosystem function because the number of stressors, and their potential interactions, are growing rapidly. Predicting the type of interactions may be possible in the near-future, using meta-analyses, conservation-oriented experiments and adaptive monitoring. Pending a general framework for predicting interactions, conservation management should enact interventions that are robust to uncertainty in interaction type and that continue to bolster biological resilience in a stressful world.

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“…Because Mountain Treasures are in the federal estate and are already publicly owned and managed, the cost of land will not need to be factored in, as in other conservation prioritizations [46]. However, we recognize that our evaluation is but one resource used in a more complex approach to conservation planning [47].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the National Significance of Local Areas for Regional Conservation Planning: North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures

Belote¹,

Irwin²

2017

Land

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Conservation scientists recognize that additional protected areas are needed to maintain biological diversity and ecological processes. As regional conservation planners embark on recommending additional areas for protection in formal ecological reserves, it is important to evaluate candidate lands for their role in building a resilient protected areas system of the future. Here, we evaluate North Carolina's Mountain Treasures with respect to their (1) ecological integrity, (2) role in connecting existing core protected areas, (3) potential to diversify the ecosystem representation of reserves, and (4) role in maintaining hotspots of biologically-rich areas that are not well protected. Mountain Treasures represent a citizen inventory of roadless areas and serve as candidates for elevated levels of conservation protection on U.S. federal lands. We compared Mountain Treasures to other candidate lands throughout the country to evaluate their potential national significance. While the Mountain Treasures tended to be more impacted by human modifications than other roadless areas, they are as important as other roadless areas with respect to their role in connecting existing protected areas and diversifying representation of ecosystems in conservation reserves. However, Mountain Treasures tended to have a much higher biodiversity priority index than other roadless areas leading to an overall higher composite score compared to other roadless areas. Our analysis serves as an example of how using broad-scale datasets can help conservation planners assess the national significance of local areas.

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Maximising return on conservation investment in the conterminous USA

Cited by 78 publications

References 42 publications

New cost estimates for carbon sequestration through afforestation in the United States

New cost estimates for carbon sequestration through afforestation in the United States

Interactions among ecosystem stressors and their importance in conservation

Quantifying the National Significance of Local Areas for Regional Conservation Planning: North Carolina’s Mountain Treasures

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