Includes bibliographical references. / Providing an economic case for establishing new protected areas and demonstrating how conservation enhances human well-being is becoming necessary to reinforce moral arguments for biodiversity protection. Accordingly; this study aimed to assess whether the spatial distribution of priority areas changes in accordance with gains in economic-efficiency when ecosystem service benefits are explicitly considered. Using the site-selection software Marxan, priority areas for South Africa were identified under four scenarios, two of which incorporated a spatial cost benefit analysis of the opportunity costs and ecosystem service benefits associated with conservation. Additional scenarios assessed how reserve design and costs changed when communal-land agriculture and resource use were weighted to account for the social costs of conservation. Opportunity costs were spatially variable and greatest in regions where mixed commercial farming was practiced. Economic benefits exceeded costs in the western interior, northern regions and along the eastern coastline. These areas contracted when ecosystem service benefits were more conservatively estimated by applying the principle of additionality. There was minimal to moderate spatial agreement between the scenarios (0.12 < κ < 0.55).When economic benefits were considered, areas that made more economic sense from a conservation management perspective were prioritized. These changes in spatial distribution were associated with gains in economic efficiency. The cost: benefit ratio was ca. 10 times greater than when no economic variables were considered (scenario 1 = 10.44 vs. scenario 4 = 1.15). When heavy weightings (> 100) were applied, the reserve systems became dispersed (R = 0.91 (for weighting factor of 10), R = 0.52 (for weighting factor of 1000)) in the former homelands and more costly overall (difference of R2.95B between the extremes). Considering the economic benefits of conservation changes the spatial distribution of priority areas and improves their economic efficiency. Disregarding economic benefits may compromise the implementation potential of priority areas, particularly when the economic benefits of competing land-uses are brought to the table. Furthermore, it is important to explicitly consider the social costs of conservation and consider resettlement or compensation costs among the trade-offs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/9793 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Palframan, Louise Moira |
| Contributors | Turpie, Jane |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Science, Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Master Thesis, Masters, MSc |
| Format | application/pdf |
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