Ecosystem Services and Opportunity Costs Shift SpatialPriorities for Conserving Forest Biodiversity
Peer reviewed, Journal article
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Date
2014Metadata
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Abstract
Inclusion of spatially explicit information on ecosystem services in conservation planning is a fairly new practice. This study
analyses how the incorporation of ecosystem services as conservation features can affect conservation of forest biodiversity
and how different opportunity cost constraints can change spatial priorities for conservation. We created spatially explicit
cost-effective conservation scenarios for 59 forest biodiversity features and five ecosystem services in the county of
Telemark (Norway) with the help of the heuristic optimisation planning software, Marxan with Zones. We combined a mix of
conservation instruments where forestry is either completely (non-use zone) or partially restricted (partial use zone).
Opportunity costs were measured in terms of foregone timber harvest, an important provisioning service in Telemark.
Including a number of ecosystem services shifted priority conservation sites compared to a case where only biodiversity was
considered, and increased the area of both the partial (+36.2%) and the non-use zone (+3.2%). Furthermore, opportunity
costs increased (+6.6%), which suggests that ecosystem services may not be a side-benefit of biodiversity conservation in
this area. Opportunity cost levels were systematically changed to analyse their effect on spatial conservation priorities.
Conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services trades off against timber harvest. Currently designated nature reserves
and landscape protection areas achieve a very low proportion (9.1%) of the conservation targets we set in our scenario,
which illustrates the high importance given to timber production at present. A trade-off curve indicated that large marginal
increases in conservation target achievement are possible when the budget for conservation is increased. Forty percent of
the maximum hypothetical opportunity costs would yield an average conservation target achievement of 79%.