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Effects of Protected Area Size on Conservation Return on Investment

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Abstract

The objective of this research is to examine how protected area size influences the conservation benefit and acquisition cost of creating a protected area, how the resulting effects influence the predicted rate of return on investment (ROI), and how those relationships change prioritization decision-making for selecting protected areas compared with decisions based only on conservation benefit and decisions based only on acquisition cost. The objective is accomplished in an econometric framework by analyzing the parcel-level acquisition cost and conservation benefit measured by the change in potential fragmentation patterns on the landscape resulting from protection. We focus on areas acquired by The Nature Conservancy in central and southern Appalachia, United States. As an indicator of the change in landscape fragmentation, we use a fragmentation statistic known as effective mesh size. Although the effect of protected parcel size on predicted ROI is inelastic, greater conservation effectiveness is obtained with larger protected parcels than with smaller ones on average. Protected parcel size influences parcels’ rankings for protection more (less) when only the predicted change in effective mesh size of protected area (only the predicted acquisition cost per area) is used for prioritizing parcels than when the ranking of parcels is determined by the predicted ROI. These findings imply that, although protected parcel size is important, failure to prioritize using ROI could result in an inappropriate level of emphasis being given to protected parcel size than is warranted.

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Notes

  1. The probability that only one individual of a species is located in \(A_{\mathrm{t}}\) is \(\frac{{A_{j}}}{{A_{\mathrm{t}}}}\). Therefore, P is the probability that two animals or plants will be in the same parcel where \(\frac{{A_{j}}}{{A_{\mathrm{t}}}}\). \(\frac{{A_{j}}}{{A_{\mathrm{t}}}} = \left( {\frac{{A_{j}}}{{A_{\mathrm{t}}}}} \right)^2\). See Supplementary Materials S1 to see how effective mesh size is calculated using probabilities.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) with funding (Award 1211142) through the project entitled, “CNH-Ex: The Influence of the Size of Protected Areas on Their Ecological and Economic Effectiveness” and the Multistate Project (W4133) from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the project entitled, “Costs and Benefits of Natural Resources on Public and Private Lands: Management, Economic Valuation, and Integrated Decision-Making.” We extend our sincere gratitude to Bradley Wilson for his ArcGIS advice and guidance. Data sources and preparation protocols for the geophysical, socioeconomic characteristics, and distance-related variables followed Kim et al. (2014). Collection protocols for landscape data for calculating effective mesh size were created by Heather Jackson (unpublished results). Data to create target species richness were obtained from Sutton and Armsworth (2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Seong-Hoon Cho & Bijay P. Sharma

  2. United States Census Bureau, Washington, DC, USA

    Kristen Thiel

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Paul R. Armsworth

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  1. Seong-Hoon Cho
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Correspondence to Seong-Hoon Cho.

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Cho, SH., Thiel, K., Armsworth, P.R. et al. Effects of Protected Area Size on Conservation Return on Investment. Environmental Management 63, 777–788 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-019-01164-9

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