Improving the Efficiency of Wildlife Management: An Application to Waterfowl Production in the Prairie Pothole Region

Wildlife management agencies increasingly use economic analyses to improve the efficiency of their management policies. Few economic studies consider supply-side analyses for wildlife management, due, in part, to a lack of biological response data that capture the full range of management strategies and the influence of landscape characteristics. This paper uses a simulation model to generate biological response functions, which are then embedded within an economic model to determine least cost management strategies. The procedure is applied to waterfowl management in the Prairie Pothole Region of the northern Great Plains. Results highlight management inefficiencies that result from oversimplified response functions that do not account for non-linear relationships or spatial heterogeneity. Results also indicate that intensive management activities, which are generally compatible with agricultural land use, are a cost effective means of achieving waterfowl population objectives. This has important implications for the tradeoff between agricultural and waterfowl production in the Prairie Pothole Region.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Will Carbon Find a Home on the Range? A Monte Carlo Simulation

Rangeland Carbon Sequestration, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Land Economics/Use,

The Effects of Scenic and Environmental Amenities on Agricultural Land Values

Ascribing land value solely to productive capacity does not accurately capture the impact environmental amenities provide on western land prices. Agricultural land prices in Wyoming are estimated using a hedonic price model and Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) data. These GIS measurements include on-parcel wildlife and fish habitat, viewscape attributes and distance to protected federal lands. A feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) approach is used to address both spatial autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity. The estimation is robust and highly significant. Results indicate that amenities as well as productivity are significant in explaining land values for the sample analyzed. Such information is useful for landscape management in the face of amenity threatening parcel fragmentation.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Can Carbon Find a Home on the Range?

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Land Use, Climate Change and Ecosystem Services

The combination of shifts in crop production and a reduction in wetland ecosystems associated with climate change are forecast to reduce native grasslands and associated obligate species. Most estimates of climate change impacts to wildlife, however, do not account for how humans are likely to alter land use in response to climate changes. We examine the joint effect of climate change and the resulting land use response of farmers on waterfowl production in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America (PPR) by linking an economic model of land use with a waterfowl habitat and productivity model. We show that cropland in the PPR is likely to increase at the expense of grassland. Higher average temperatures, lower average precipitation and higher shares of land in crops decreases wetland and grassland habitat. Moreover, reduced habitat and higher crop shares are correlated with lower waterfowl production. Under alternative climate scenarios and their indirect effects on crop shares, wetland habitat and waterfowl numbers decrease substantially. Moreover, land use response to climate change exacerbates the direct negative effects of climate change on waterfowl populations. We show that failure to account for such land use changes may substantially understate the effects of climate on wetland productivity and the actions required to mitigate climate impacts

Land Use, Climate Change and Ecosystem Services

The combination of shifts in crop production and a reduction in wetland ecosystems associated with climate change are forecast to reduce native grasslands and associated obligate species. Most estimates of climate change impacts to wildlife, however, do not account for how humans are likely to alter land use in response to climate changes. We examine the joint effect of climate change and the resulting land use response of farmers on waterfowl production in the Prairie Pothole Region of North America (PPR) by linking an economic model of land use with a waterfowl habitat and productivity model. We show that cropland in the PPR is likely to increase at the expense of grassland. Higher average temperatures, lower average precipitation and higher shares of land in crops decreases wetland and grassland habitat. Moreover, reduced habitat and higher crop shares are correlated with lower waterfowl production. Under alternative climate scenarios and their indirect effects on crop shares, wetland habitat and waterfowl numbers decrease substantially. Moreover, land use response to climate change exacerbates the direct negative effects of climate change on waterfowl populations. We show that failure to account for such land use changes may substantially understate the effects of climate on wetland productivity and the actions required to mitigate climate impacts

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Improving the Efficiency of Wildlife Management: An Application to Waterfowl Production in the Prairie Pothole Region

Wildlife management agencies increasingly use economic analyses to improve the efficiency of their management policies. Few economic studies consider supply-side analyses for wildlife management, due, in part, to a lack of biological response data that capture the full range of management strategies and the influence of landscape characteristics. This paper uses a simulation model to generate biological response functions, which are then embedded within an economic model to determine least cost management strategies. The procedure is applied to waterfowl management in the Prairie Pothole Region of the northern Great Plains. Results highlight management inefficiencies that result from oversimplified response functions that do not account for non-linear relationships or spatial heterogeneity. Results also indicate that intensive management activities, which are generally compatible with agricultural land use, are a cost effective means of achieving waterfowl population objectives. This has important implications for the tradeoff between agricultural and waterfowl production in the Prairie Pothole Region