Identifying the Opportunity Cost of Critical Habitat Designation under the U.S. Endangered Species Act

We determine the effect of the US Endangered Species Act’s Critical Habitat designation on land use change from 1992 to 2011. We find that the rate of change in developed land (constructed material) and agricultural land is not significantly affected by Critical Habitat designation. Therefore, Sections 7 and 9 of the Endangered Species Act do not appear to be more heavily applied in lands designated as Critical Habitat areas versus lands within listed species’ ranges, but without critical habitat designation. Further, there does not appear to be any extraordinary conservation activity in critical habitat areas; for example, environmental non-profits and land trusts do not appear to be concentrating activity in these areas. Before we conclude that the opportunity cost of Critical Habitat designation is negligible we need to examine the land management impacts of designation

Projected land-use change impacts on ecosystem services in the United States

Providing food, timber, energy, housing, and other goods and services, while maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity that underpin their sustainable supply, is one of the great challenges of our time. Understanding the drivers of land-use change and how policies can alter land-use change will be critical to meeting this challenge. Here we project land-use change in the contiguous United States to 2051 under two plausible baseline trajectories of economic conditions to illustrate how differences in underlying market forces can have large impacts on land-use with cascading effects on ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project a large increase in croplands (28.2 million ha) under a scenario with high crop demand mirroring conditions starting in 2007, compared with a loss of cropland (11.2 million ha) mirroring conditions in the 1990s. Projected land-use changes result in increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields, and \u3e10% decreases in habitat for 25% of modeled species. We also analyze policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover and natural landscapes and reduce urban expansion. Although these policy scenarios modify baseline land-use patterns, they do not reverse powerful underlying trends. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use change trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision

Evaluating the Return in Ecosystem Services from Investment in Public Land Acquisitions

We evaluate the return on investment (ROI) from public land conservation in the state of Minnesota, USA. We use a spatially-explicit modeling tool, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), to estimate how changes in land use and land cover (LULC), including public land acquisitions for conservation, influence the joint provision and value of multiple ecosystem services. We calculate the ROI of a public conservation acquisition as the ratio of the present value of ecosystem services generated by the conservation to the cost of the conservation. For the land scenarios analyzed, carbon sequestration services generated the greatest benefits followed by water quality improvements and recreation opportunities. We found ROI values ranged from 0.21 to 5.28 depending on assumptions about future land use change, service values, and discount rate. Our study suggests conservation is a good investment as long as investments are targeted to areas with low land costs and high service values

Projected land-use change impacts on ecosystem services in the U.S.

Providing food, timber, energy, housing, and other goods and services, while maintaining ecosystem functions and biodiversity that underpin their sustainable supply, is one of the great challenges of our time. Understanding the drivers of land-use change and how policies can alter land-use change will be critical to meeting this challenge. Here we project land-use change in the contiguous U.S. to 2051 under two plausible baseline trajectories of economic conditions to illustrate how differences in underlying market forces can have large impacts on land-use with cascading effects on ecosystem services and wildlife habitat. We project a large increase in croplands (28.2 million ha) under a scenario with high crop demand mirroring conditions starting in 2007, compared to a loss of cropland (11.2 million ha) mirroring conditions in the 1990s. Projected land-use changes result in increases in carbon storage, timber production, food production from increased yields, and >10% decreases in habitat for 25% of modeled species. We also analyze policy alternatives designed to encourage forest cover, natural landscapes, and reduce urban expansion. Although these policy scenarios modify baseline land-use patterns, they do not reverse powerful underlying trends. Policy interventions need to be aggressive to significantly alter underlying land-use change trends and shift the trajectory of ecosystem service provision.Keywords: econometric model, land-use change, ecosystem services, food production, biodiversity, timber, carbonThis is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by [publisher] and can be found at: http://www.pnas.org/

The Impact of Land-Use Change on Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Returns to Landowners: A Case Study in the State of Minnesota

Ecosystem services, Biodiversity, Land use, Private returns to landowners, Net social benefits, Tradeoffs,

Identifying the impacts of critical habitat designation on land cover change

The US Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulates what landowners, land managers, and industry can do on lands occupied by listed species. The ESA does this in part by requiring the designation of habitat within each listed species’ range considered critical to their recovery. Critics have argued that critical habitat (CH) designation creates significant economic costs while contributing little to species recovery. Here we examine the effects of CH designation on land cover change. We find that the rate of change from 1992 to 2011 in developed (urban and residential) and agricultural land in CH areas was not significantly different compared to similar lands without CH designation, but still subject to ESA regulations. Although CH designation on average does not affect overall rates of land cover change, CH designation did slightly modify the impact of land cover change drivers. Generally, variation in land prices played a larger role in land cover decisions within CH areas than in similar areas without CH designation. These trends suggest that developers may require a greater than typical expected return to development in CH areas to compensate for the higher risk of regulatory scrutiny. Ultimately, our results bring into question the very rationale for the CH regulation. If it is for the most part not affecting land cover choices, is CH helping species recover

Evaluating the Return in Ecosystem Services from Investment in Public Land Acquisitions

We evaluate how land use change and the value ecosystem services affect the decision to invest in public land acquisitions. Our application is for the state of Minnesota, and we consider the acquisitions by Department of Natural Resources over the last two decades. We calculate a return on investment (ROI) in conservation showing the increase in the value of ecosystem goods and services from public lands per dollar spent on acquisition. A spatially-explicit modeling tool, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), quantifies how changes in land use and land cover (LULC) influence the provision and value of a suite of ecosystem services: carbon sequestration, timber production, water quality, habitat quality, and outdoor recreation. The present value of the difference in the value of ecosystem services from landscapes with and without acquisitions in 1992 and for the econometrically modeled future landscapes in 2022 and 2052 is the return from the investment in the acquisitions. We find a limited number of acquisitions have a ROI above one. Also, we observe the estimated return in the acquisitions is much more influenced by the economic value of ecosystem services than the projected development threat to the acquisitions

Future fire emissions associated with projected land use change in Sumatra

Indonesia has experienced rapid land use change over the last few decades as forests and peatswamps have been cleared for more intensively managed land uses, including oil palm and timber plantations. Fires are the predominant method of clearing and managing land for more intensive uses, and the related emissions affect public health by contributing to regional particulate matter and ozone concentrations and adding to global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Here, we examine emissions from fires associated with land use clearing and land management on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the sensitivity of this fire activity to interannual meteorological variability. We find similar to 80% of 2005-2009 Sumatra emissions are associated with degradation or land use maintenance instead of immediate land use conversion, especially in dry years. We estimate Sumatra fire emissions from land use change and maintenance for the next two decades with five scenarios of land use change, the Global Fire Emissions Database Version 3, detailed 1-km(2) land use change maps, and MODIS fire radiative power observations. Despite comprising only 16% of the original study area, we predict that 37-48% of future Sumatra emissions from land use change will occur in fuel-rich peatswamps unless this land cover type is protected effectively. This result means that the impact of fires on future air quality and climate in Equatorial Asia will be decided in part by the conservation status given to the remaining peatswamps on Sumatra. Results from this article will be implemented in an atmospheric transport model to quantify the public health impacts from the transport of fire emissions associated with future land use scenarios in Sumatra

Ecosystem service information to benefit sustainability standards for commodity supply chains

The growing base of information about ecosystem services generated by ecologists, economists, and other scientists could improve the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of commodity-sourcing standards being adopted by corporations to mitigate risk in their supply chains and achieve sustainability goals. This review examines various ways that information about ecosystem services could facilitate compliance with and auditing of commodity-sourcing standards. We also identify gaps in the current state of knowledge on the ecological effectiveness of sustainability standards and demonstrate how ecosystem-service information could complement existing monitoring efforts to build credible evidence. This paper is a call to the ecosystem-service scientists to engage in this decision context and tailor the information they are generating to the needs of the standards community, which we argue would offer greater efficiency of standards implementation for producers and enhanced effectiveness for standard scheme owners and corporations, and should thus lead to more sustainable outcomes for people and nature

Evaluating the Return in Ecosystem Services from Investment in Public Land Acquisitions

<div><p>We evaluate the return on investment (ROI) from public land conservation in the state of Minnesota, USA. We use a spatially-explicit modeling tool, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), to estimate how changes in land use and land cover (LULC), including public land acquisitions for conservation, influence the joint provision and value of multiple ecosystem services. We calculate the ROI of a public conservation acquisition as the ratio of the present value of ecosystem services generated by the conservation to the cost of the conservation. For the land scenarios analyzed, carbon sequestration services generated the greatest benefits followed by water quality improvements and recreation opportunities. We found ROI values ranged from 0.21 to 5.28 depending on assumptions about future land use change, service values, and discount rate. Our study suggests conservation is a good investment as long as investments are targeted to areas with low land costs and high service values.</p></div