POLICIES TO REDUCE FOREST FRAGMENTATION: COMBINING ECONOMETRIC MODELS WITH GIS-BASED LANDSCAPE SIMULATIONS

Forest fragmentation is a primary threat to terrestrial biodiversity. We combine a parcel-level econometric model of land-use transitions with spatially-explicit landscape simulations to predict the empirical distribution of fragmentation outcomes under given market conditions and policy scenarios. Our model explains transitions between forest, agricultural, and urban uses, allowing us to model land use change in both rural and urban areas. A Monte Carlo simulation approach links econometrically-derived transition probabilities to GIS maps for the prediction of the spatial properties of habitat change.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Targeting Incentives to Reduce Habitat Fragmentation

This paper develops a theoretical model to analyze the spatial targeting of incentives for the restoration of forested landscapes when wildlife habitat can be enhanced by reducing fragmentation. The key theoretical result is that the marginal net benefits of increasing forest are convex, indicating that corner solutions--converting either none or all of the agricultural land in a section to forest--may be optimal. Corner solutions are directly linked to the spatial process determining habitat benefits and the regulator's incomplete information regarding landowner opportunity costs. We present findings from a large-scale empirical landscape simulation that supports our key theoretical results.

Neuropsychological deficit and psychodynamic defence models of schizophrenia : towards an integrated psychotherapeutic model

In recent psychiatric literature on schizophrenia the contribution of psycho- analytic ideas tends to be discounted on the basis of two claims: the first is that psychoanalytic treatments of schizophrenia have been shown to be ineffective and the second repeats Karl Popper's original critique that psycho- dynamic explanations are a priori unscientific because they are unfalsifiable (Bentall, 2006; McGorry, 2004). As Glen Gabbard notes, such statements follow the recent fashion in psychiatry which assumes that the success of the neurosciences renders psychodynamic contributions both redundant and outdated (Gabbard, 1994; Gabbard et aI., 2002). While it is disappointing to read statements which ignore important theoretical debates, such summary dismissal also indicates a missed opportunity to consider the experience of many therapists and patients who have found some benefit in a psycho- analytic approach (Cullberg and Johannessen, 2004; Gottdiener and Haslam, 2003)

The Efficiency of Voluntary Incentive Policies for Preventing Biodiversity Loss

In this paper we analyze the efficiency of voluntary incentive-based land-use policies for biodiversity conservation. Two factors combine to make it difficult to achieve an efficient result. First, the spatial pattern of habitat across multiple landowners is important for determining biodiversity conservation results. Second, the willingness of private landowners to accept a payment in exchange for enrolling in a conservation program is private information. Therefore, a conservation agency cannot easily control the spatial pattern of voluntary enrollment in conservation programs. We begin by showing how the distribution of a landowner's willingness-to-accept a conservation payment can be derived from a parcel-scale land-use change model. Next we combine the econometric land-use model with spatial data and ecological models to simulate the effects of various conservation program designs on biodiversity conservation outcomes. We compare these results to an estimate of the efficiency frontier that maximizes biodiversity conservation at each level of cost. The frontier mimics the regulator's solution to the biodiversity conservation problem when she has perfect information on landowner willingness-to-accept. Results indicate that there are substantial differences in biodiversity conservation scores generated by the incentive-based policies and efficient solutions. The performance of incentive-based policies is particularly poor at low levels of the conservation budget where spatial fragmentation of conserved parcels is a large concern. Performance can be improved by encouraging agglomeration of conserved habitat and by incorporating basic biological information, such as that on rare habitats, into the selection criteria.

PUBLIC CONSERVATION LAND AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN THE NORTHERN FOREST REGION

As with many environmental issues, debates about increasing public conservation lands in the Northern Forest region frequently center on a perceived tradeoff between jobs and the environment. In particular, opponents of conservation lands often argue that employment will decline significantly when land is diverted from commodity-oriented uses such as wood products production. To evaluate this claim, we estimate a model of simultaneous employment and net migration growth using data on the 92 non-metropolitan counties comprising the region. Growth in employment and net migration are measured over the period 1990 to 1997 and the set of exogenous variables includes the 1990 share of the county land base in public conservation uses. We find that net migration rates were systematically higher in counties with more conservation lands, but the effects are relatively small. Public conservation lands were found to have no systematic effect on employment growth over the 1990 to 1997 period. Two extensions are considered. We examine the separate effects of preservationist and multiple-use lands. We also identify a "natural experiment" involving changes in national forest management that allows us to estimate the effects of diverting private forestland to public conservation uses. Our central conclusions are that existing public conservation lands have a positive, but small, effect on employment and migration in the Northern Forest region and that, over the range of our data, employment and migration are unlikely to be affected by timber harvest reductions resulting from the establishment of new conservation lands.Labor and Human Capital, Land Economics/Use,