Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa.
Conserv Biol. 2010 Aug;24(4):1021-30. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01442.x. Epub 2010 Feb 4.
Global declines in biodiversity and the widespread degradation of ecosystem services have led to urgent calls to safeguard both. Responses to this urgency include calls to integrate the needs of ecosystem services and biodiversity into the design of conservation interventions. The benefits of such integration are purported to include improvements in the justification and resources available for these interventions. Nevertheless, additional costs and potential trade-offs remain poorly understood in the design of interventions that seek to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services. We sought to investigate the synergies and trade-offs in safeguarding ecosystem services and biodiversity in South Africa's Little Karoo. We used data on three ecosystem services--carbon storage, water recharge, and fodder provision--and data on biodiversity to examine several conservation planning scenarios. First, we investigated the amount of each ecosystem service captured incidentally by a conservation plan to meet targets for biodiversity only while minimizing opportunity costs. We then examined the costs of adding targets for ecosystem services into this conservation plan. Finally, we explored trade-offs between biodiversity and ecosystem service targets at a fixed cost. At least 30% of each ecosystem service was captured incidentally when all of biodiversity targets were met. By including data on ecosystem services, we increased the amount of services captured by at least 20% for all three services without additional costs. When biodiversity targets were reduced by 8%, an extra 40% of fodder provision and water recharge were obtained and 58% of carbon could be captured for the same cost. The opportunity cost (in terms of forgone production) of safeguarding 100% of the biodiversity targets was about US$500 million. Our results showed that with a small decrease in biodiversity target achievement, substantial gains for the conservation of ecosystem services can be achieved within our biodiversity priority areas for no extra cost.
全球生物多样性的减少和生态系统服务的广泛退化，导致人们迫切呼吁保护这两者。应对这种紧迫性的措施包括呼吁将生态系统服务和生物多样性的需求纳入保护干预措施的设计中。这种整合的好处据称包括提高这些干预措施的理由和可获得的资源。然而，在设计旨在保护生物多样性和生态系统服务的干预措施时，额外的成本和潜在的权衡仍然了解甚少。我们试图研究南非小卡鲁地区保护生态系统服务和生物多样性的协同作用和权衡。我们使用了三种生态系统服务（碳储存、水源涵养和饲料供应）的数据以及生物多样性数据，以研究几种保护规划方案。首先，我们调查了在仅满足生物多样性目标而最小化机会成本的情况下，保护计划偶然捕获的每种生态系统服务的数量。然后，我们研究了在这种保护计划中增加生态系统服务目标的成本。最后，我们在固定成本下探讨了生物多样性和生态系统服务目标之间的权衡。当所有生物多样性目标都得到满足时，每种生态系统服务的至少 30%是偶然捕获的。通过包括生态系统服务的数据，我们至少增加了所有三种服务的 20%的服务捕获量，而没有增加额外的成本。当将生物多样性目标减少 8%时，额外获得了 40%的饲料供应和水源涵养，并且可以以相同的成本捕获 58%的碳。保护 100%的生物多样性目标的机会成本（以放弃的生产为单位）约为 5 亿美元。我们的结果表明，在生物多样性目标实现略有下降的情况下，可以在我们的生物多样性优先地区以不增加成本的方式，为保护生态系统服务取得实质性的进展。
