Land use, national development and global welfare: the economics of biodiversity's conservation and sustainable use

Material prosperity of countries depends on the use of their endowment of natural resources. Land management decisions, in particular, also affect the conservation of biological diversity, which is an asset for not only for the host country, but also for the rest of the world. There is a growing recognition that the contribution of biological resources both to sustainable national development and to the well being of the international community has been underestimated in the past. Based on both theoretical analysis and case study material from Mexico, this dissertation discusses the land-use related factors giving rise to the loss of biodiversity, as well policy options and management practices that may allow sustainable land use and biodiversity conservation. The introductory chapter summarises the scientific and economic debate, including disagreements about the definition of biodiversity management objectives. Chapter 2 analyses the sequence of land use changes typically observed in a number of tropical countries, and discusses interventions which could alter the incentives for land conversion. The Convention on Biological Diversity stipulates that developing countries should be reimbursed for the 'incremental cost' of activities that help conserving biodiversity. Chapter 3 proposes a model which addresses the allocative and incentive implications of the incremental cost mechanism. The empirical part of the dissertation first discusses the social and economic factors that have been responsible over the last few decades for land us change and depletion of biological resources in the study area in Mexico (chapters 4 and 5). A linear programming economic model is then proposed, for simulating, at the farm level, further impacts over the next decade (chapter 5). Based on a model of aggregation over space and time of farm-level decisions, chapter 6 analyzes the appropriate mix of conservation and sustainable use management options in the study area, providing estimates of their cost implications and discussing possible funding sources. Chapter 7 concludes with policy implications and options for future research

Achieving Sustainable Development in Jordan : Country Environmental Analysis

This Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) has been developed by the World Bank in cooperation with the Government of Jordan. It aims to integrate environment into development and poverty reduction priorities. The CEA will be a vital instrument for designing Jordans future policies, by integrating the economic policy tools in our decision making processes. As the latest economic crises and its implications have shown, an economic model that is based on consumption alone cannot be sustained; accordingly many countries identified the need to green their economics as the base for sustainable growth and development. Jordans green economic initiative will enhance social integration, economic growth an environmental sustainability within one focused, measured and stable economic plan. Jordan is a small country that is rich in human capital; the green journey will be a twenty years program to retrofit our infrastructure, to become energy, water and resource efficient. The recommendations identified in this document will be the main drivers for the environmental policies in the country. The issue of adequate incentives for better quantity management clearly remains important, but is not addressed in this report. After the national agenda was established, it appears that the reduction of water related subsidies and the creation of incentives for allocating water to higher value added uses are being recognized as necessities that public policies will address in the future

Environmentally protected areas and local development in the 2000-2006 regional policies

Nature is an important resource which can enhance Italy’s territorial competitiveness. Nature reserves cover about ten per cent of the territory and are even more concentrated in Southern Italy. In order to draw upon such an asset effectively, an overall strategy should be applied to the environmentally protected areas, which call for institutional reinforcement and closer integration with the surrounding areas. This article provides a territorial analysis of the projects financed within the CSF 2000-2006 - the general framework for regional development programmes in areas lagging behind in Italy in the past few years - in the attempt to understand if the strategy applied has produced the desired effects in environmentally protected areas.Environment and Development, Regional policies 2000-2006

Climate Change and Adaptation: The Case of Nigerian Agriculture

The present research offers an economic assessment of climate change impacts on the four major crop families characterizing Nigerian agriculture. The evaluation is performed by shocking land productivity in a computable general equilibrium model tailored to replicate Nigerian economic development up to 2050. The detail of land uses in the model has been increased by differentiating land types per agro-ecological zones. Uncertainty about future climate is captured, using, as inputs, yield changes computed by a crop model under ten general circulation models runs. Climate change turns out to be negative for Nigeria in the medium term, with production losses and increase in crop prices, higher food dependency on foreign imports, and GDP losses in all the simulations after 2025. In a second part of the paper, a cost effectiveness analysis of adaptation in Nigerian agriculture is conducted. The adaptation practices considered are a mix of cheaper "soft measures" and more costly "hard" irrigation expansion. The main result is that the cost effectiveness of the whole package depends crucially on the possibility of implementing adaptation by exploiting low-cost opportunities which show a benefit-cost ratio larger than one in all the climate regimes