Naidoo Robin, Ricketts Taylor H
Conservation Science Program, World Wildlife Fund, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
PLoS Biol. 2006 Oct;4(11):e360. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040360.
Resources for biodiversity conservation are severely limited, requiring strategic investment. Understanding both the economic benefits and costs of conserving ecosystems will help to allocate scarce dollars most efficiently. However, although cost-benefit analyses are common in many areas of policy, they are not typically used in conservation planning. We conducted a spatial evaluation of the costs and benefits of conservation for a landscape in the Atlantic forests of Paraguay. We considered five ecosystem services (i.e., sustainable bushmeat harvest, sustainable timber harvest, bioprospecting for pharmaceutical products, existence value, and carbon storage in aboveground biomass) and compared them to estimates of the opportunity costs of conservation. We found a high degree of spatial variability in both costs and benefits over this relatively small (approximately 3,000 km(2)) landscape. Benefits exceeded costs in some areas, with carbon storage dominating the ecosystem service values and swamping opportunity costs. Other benefits associated with conservation were more modest and exceeded costs only in protected areas and indigenous reserves. We used this cost-benefit information to show that one potential corridor between two large forest patches had net benefits that were three times greater than two otherwise similar alternatives. Spatial cost-benefit analysis can powerfully inform conservation planning, even though the availability of relevant data may be limited, as was the case in our study area. It can help us understand the synergies between biodiversity conservation and economic development when the two are indeed aligned and to clearly understand the trade-offs when they are not.
生物多样性保护资源严重有限，需要进行战略投资。了解保护生态系统的经济效益和成本，将有助于最有效地分配稀缺资金。然而，尽管成本效益分析在许多政策领域很常见，但在保护规划中通常并不使用。我们对巴拉圭大西洋森林某一景观的保护成本和效益进行了空间评估。我们考虑了五种生态系统服务（即可持续的丛林肉收获、可持续的木材收获、药品生物勘探、存在价值以及地上生物量中的碳储存），并将它们与保护的机会成本估计值进行了比较。我们发现在这片相对较小（约3000平方公里）的景观中，成本和效益在空间上存在高度变异性。在某些地区，效益超过了成本，其中碳储存主导了生态系统服务价值并掩盖了机会成本。与保护相关的其他效益较为适度，仅在保护区和原住民保留地超过了成本。我们利用这些成本效益信息表明，两个大型森林斑块之间的一条潜在走廊的净效益比另外两个类似替代方案大三倍。空间成本效益分析能够有力地为保护规划提供信息，尽管相关数据的可得性可能有限，就像我们研究区域的情况一样。当生物多样性保护与经济发展确实一致时，它可以帮助我们理解两者之间的协同作用；而当两者不一致时，它能让我们清楚地理解其中的权衡取舍。
