Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications

A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 31176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research Fellowship

Working paper analysing the economic implications of the proposed 30% target for areal protection in the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framewor

58 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables- The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). - Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. - Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. - If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. [...]A. Waldron, K. Nakamura, J. Sze, T. Vilela, A. Escobedo, P. Negret Torres, R. Button, K. Swinnerton, A. Toledo, P. Madgwick, N. Mukherjee were supported by National Geographic and the Resources Legacy Fund. V. Christensen was supported by NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04901. M. Coll and J. Steenbeek were supported by EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 817578 (TRIATLAS). D. Leclere was supported by TradeHub UKRI CGRF project. R. Heneghan was supported by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Acciones de Programacion Conjunta Internacional (PCIN-2017-115). M. di Marco was supported by MIUR Rita Levi Montalcini programme. A. Fernandez-Llamazares was supported by Academy of Finland (grant nr. 311176). S. Fujimori and T. Hawegawa were supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan and the Sumitomo Foundation. V. Heikinheimo was supported by Kone Foundation, Social Media for Conservation project. K. Scherrer was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 682602. U. Rashid Sumaila acknowledges the OceanCanada Partnership, which funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). T. Toivonen was supported by Osk. Huttunen Foundation & Clare Hall college, Cambridge. W. Wu was supported by The Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2-2002) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. Z. Yuchen was supported by a Ministry of Education of Singapore Research Scholarship Block (RSB) Research FellowshipPeer reviewe

Quantifying conservation outcomes in Indigenous peoples’ lands across the tropics

Biodiversity loss and climate change represent some of the biggest challenges humanity currently faces, with habitat loss as the biggest proximate driver. Area-based conservation is a key conservation policy and recent international conservation targets aimed for at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas to be effectively conserved and managed through protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognising Indigenous and traditional territories, by 2030. While the effectiveness of protected areas (PAs) in achieving conservation outcomes has received much research attention in recent years, there still remains a gap in a global-scale understanding for Indigenous lands (ILs). Focusing on tropical forests, as globally important biomes for biodiversity and climate change mitigation, this thesis quantifies three metrics of conservation outcomes on ILs, PAs, the spatial overlap of protected areas and Indigenous lands (PIAs), and non-protected areas across the tropical Americas, Africa, and Asia. In Chapter 2, I examined deforestation and forest degradation rates from 2011-2019 using propensity score matching and generalised linear mixed models. I found that deforestation was reduced by 16.8-25.9% and degradation reduced by 9.1-18.4% on ILs compared to non-protected areas across tropical regions, while differences compared to PAs varied between regions. In Chapter 3, I sought to investigate forest integrity using the Forest Landscape Integrity Index which incorporates observed pressures, inferred pressures, and lost connectivity, and long-term human land-use intensity using the Anthromes dataset. Across tropical regions, forest integrity was highest and land-use intensity the least in PIAs, but varied in ILs between regions compared to non-protected areas. In Chapter 4, I assessed 11,872 forest-dependent vertebrate species’ Area of Habitat and compared species richness, extinction vulnerability, and range-size rarity inside and outside Indigenous peoples’ lands. At least 76.8% of tropical amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles had range overlaps with ILs, with an average range overlap of ~25%. Most countries in the Americas had higher species richness in ILs than outside, whereas most countries in Asia had lower extinction vulnerability scores in ILs, and more countries in Africa and Asia had slightly higher range-size rarity in ILs. Taken together, the thesis reveals the contributions that Indigenous peoples’ lands make towards tropical conservation, in terms of reducing habitat loss, maintaining habitat quality, and providing vital habitat for forest-dependent vertebrate diversity. Supporting and including Indigenous peoples in conservation target-setting and planning is not only socially just, it is likely vital to the success of achieving the Kunming-Montreal targets

Evaluating the social and environmental factors behind the 2015 extreme fire event in Sumatra, Indonesia

Fires in Indonesia release excessive carbon and are exacerbated during drier El Niño years. The recent 2015 fires were affected by an extended drought caused by a strong El Niño event. This led to severe haze conditions across Southeast Asia, resulting in adverse socioeconomic and health impacts. Here, we evaluate the social and environmental factors that contributed to the 2015 extreme fires in Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra. We developed proxy variables for plausible drivers of fire which contribute either as a predisposing condition or as an ignition source for fires. We evaluated how these variables influenced fire count at an administrative regency-level and fire occurrence at a pixel-level (1 km2). We used generalized linear mixed effect models to model fire count at the regency-level and boosted regression trees to model fire occurrence at the pixel-level. Rainfall, slope and population density were the most important variables predicting fires at both levels. Economic variables such as the proportion of small-scale (<10 ha) and medium-scale (10–100 ha) plantation landholdings, and the reported use of fires to clear agricultural lands in villages were important in explaining fire count at the regency-level. At the pixel-level, distance from roads and the number of recorded burns over peatlands were important in explaining fire occurrence. The main influence of rain on fires corroborates with previous studies, and highlights the importance of establishing an early warning system for droughts to better prevent and manage future extreme fire events. Mitigation efforts for future fires, especially during El Niño years, can focus on identifying high-risk areas using environmental data on rainfall, slope, peatlands, and previously burnt peat areas, as well as social data related to population density, access to roads, extents of small- and medium-plantation landholdings, and village-level propensity to burn land for agriculture.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore)Published versio

Indigenous Peoples' Lands are critical for safeguarding vertebrate diversity across the tropics.

Publication status: PublishedIndigenous Peoples are long-term custodians of their lands, but only recently are their contributions to conservation starting to be recognized in biodiversity policy and practice. Tropical forest loss and degradation are lower in Indigenous lands than unprotected areas, yet the role of Indigenous Peoples' Lands (IPL) in biodiversity conservation has not been properly assessed from regional to global scales. Using species distribution ranges of 11,872 tropical forest-dependent vertebrates to create area of habitat maps, we identified the overlap of these species ranges with IPL and then compared values inside and outside of IPL for species richness, extinction vulnerability, and range-size rarity. Of assessed vertebrates, at least 76.8% had range overlaps with IPL, on average overlapping ~25% of their ranges; at least 120 species were found only within IPL. Species richness within IPL was highest in South America, while IPL in Southeast Asia had highest extinction vulnerability, and IPL in Dominica and New Caledonia were important for range-size rarity. Most countries in the Americas had higher species richness within IPL than outside, whereas most countries in Asia had lower extinction vulnerability scores inside IPL and more countries in Africa and Asia had slightly higher range-size rarity in IPL. Our findings suggest that IPL provide critical support for tropical forest-dependent vertebrates, highlighting the need for greater inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in conservation target-setting and program implementation, and stronger upholding of Indigenous Peoples' rights in conservation policy

Projecting the performance of conservation interventions

Successful decision-making for environmental management requires evidence of the performance and efficacy of proposed conservation interventions. Projecting the future impacts of prospective conservation policies and programs is challenging due to a range of complex ecological, economic, social and ethical factors, and in particular the need to extrapolate models to novel contexts. Yet many extrapolation techniques currently employed are limited by unfounded assumptions of causality and a reliance on potentially biased inferences drawn from limited data. We show how these restrictions can be overcome by established and emerging techniques from causal inference, scenario analysis, systematic review, expert elicitation, and global sensitivity analysis. These technical advances provide avenues to untangle cause from correlation, evaluate and transfer models between contexts, characterize uncertainty, and address imperfect data. With more rigorous projections of prospective performance of interventions, scientists can deliver policy and program advice that is more scientifically credible. © 2017 Elsevier Lt

Protecting 30% of the planet for nature: costs, benefits and economic implications

The World Economic Forum now ranks biodiversity loss as a top-five risk to the global economy, and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposes an expansion of conservation areas to 30% of the earth’s surface by 2030 (hereafter the “30% target”), using protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs). Two immediate concerns are how much a 30% target might cost and whether it will cause economic losses to the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors. Conservation areas also generate economic benefits (e.g. revenue from nature tourism and ecosystem services), making PAs/Nature an economic sector in their own right. If some economic sectors benefit but others experience a loss, high-level policy makers need to know the net impact on the wider economy, as well as on individual sectors. The current report, based on the work of over 100 economists/scientists, analyses the global economic implications of a 30% PA target for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and the PA/nature sector itself. (OECMs were only defined by the CBD in 2018, too recently to economically model, but we include a qualitative treatment of them.) We carried out two analyses: a global financial one (concrete revenues and costs only); and a tropics- focused economic one (including non-monetary ecosystem service values), for multiple scenarios of how a 30% PA target might be implemented. Our financial analysis showed that expanding PAs to 30% would generate higher overall output (revenues) than non-expansion (an extra $64 billion-$454 billion per year by 2050). (Figure 1-2). In the economic analysis, only a partial assessment was possible, focusing on forests and mangroves. For those biomes alone, the 30% target had an avoided-loss value of $170-$534 billion per year by 2050, largely reflecting the benefit of avoiding the flooding, climate change, soil loss and coastal storm- surge damage that occur when natural vegetation is removed. The value for all biomes would be higher. Implementing the proposal would therefore make little initial difference to total (multi-sector) economic output, although a modest rise in gross output value is projected. The main immediate difference between expansion and non-expansion is therefore in broader economic/social values. Expansion outperforms non-expansion in mitigating the very large economic risks of climate change and biodiversity loss (Figure 5). The 30% target would also increase by 63%- 98% the area recognised as Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land-based nature stewardship contribution (within appropriate rights and governance frameworks). Economic growth in the PA/nature sector (at 4-6%) was also many times faster than the 1% growth expected in competing sectors (Figure 3). Marine expansion restores growth to fisheries (after a shock) but non-expansion leads to a mid-term contraction (Figure 4). The annual investment needed for an expanded (30%) PA system is $103 –$178 billion1. This figure includes $68 billion for the existing system, of which only$24.3 is currently spent. (Underfunded systems lose revenue, assets, carbon and biodiversity). Most of the investment need is in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These often have a competitive asset advantage in terms of natural areas, but they may need international support to capitalise on that opportunity. Otherwise, growing the PA sector could also entrench global economic inequalities. Benefits and costs also accrue to different stakeholders at smaller (e.g. local) scales, making welfare distribution a challenge that needs addressing

Organismos modificados para el medio ambiente: historias de éxito y fracaso, y qué hemos aprendido de ellas

The expectations raised in the mid-1980s on the potential of genetic engineering for in situ remediation of environmental pollution have not been entirely fulfilled. Yet, we have learned a good deal about the expression of catabolic pathways by bacteria in their natural habitats, and how environmental conditions dictate the expression of desired catalytic activities. The many different choices between nutrients and responses to stresses form a network of transcriptional switches which, given the redundance and robustness of the regulatory circuits involved, can be neither unraveled through standard genetic analysis nor artificially programmed in a simple manner. Available data suggest that population dynamics and physiological control of catabolic gene expression prevail over any artificial attempt to engineer an optimal performance of the wanted catalytic activities. In this review, several valuable spin-offs of past research into genetically modified organisms with environmental applications are discussed, along with the impact of Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology in the future of environmental biotechnology.The work of our laboratories cited in this article was funded by grants of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, the European Union, and the Conservation Biology Program of the BBVA Foundation.Peer reviewe

Organismos modificados para el medio ambiente: historias de éxito y fracaso, y qué hemos aprendido de ellas

The expectations raised in the mid-1980s on the potential of genetic engineering for in situ remediation of environmental pollution have not been entirely fulfilled. Yet, we have learned a good deal about the expression of catabolic pathways by bacteria in their natural habitats, and how environmental conditions dictate the expression of desired catalytic activities. The many different choices between nutrients and responses to stresses form a network of transcriptional switches which, given the redundance and robustness of the regulatory circuits involved, can be neither unraveled through standard genetic analysis nor artificially programmed in a simple manner. Available data suggest that population dynamics and physiological control of catabolic gene expression prevail over any artificial attempt to engineer an optimal performance of the wanted catalytic activities. In this review, several valuable spin-offs of past research into genetically modified organisms with environmental applications are discussed, along with the impact of Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology in the future of environmental biotechnology.The work of our laboratories cited in this article was funded by grants of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, the European Union, and the Conservation Biology Program of the BBVA Foundation.Peer reviewe