IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v398y1999i6724d10.1038_18339.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why biodiversity surveys are good value

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Balmford

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Kevin J. Gaston

    (University of Sheffield)

Abstract

Article 8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity obliges contracting parties to establish protected areas for conservation. This can be achieved in smaller networks of reserves if their design is based on how well different sites complement one another biologically, rather than on more commonly used criteria, such as species richness or simple availability for acquisition1,2. However, this increase in efficiency3 requires species lists for each candidate site, and obtaining such data can be expensive; for example, a detailed survey of five taxa across 15,000 km2 of forest in Uganda took nearly 100 person-years and cost about US$1 million4,5. Here we ask whether investing in such surveys makes economic sense, or whether conservation agencies would be better advised to continue following more traditional reserve selection procedures, at the cost of having to conserve larger reserve networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Balmford & Kevin J. Gaston, 1999. "Why biodiversity surveys are good value," Nature, Nature, vol. 398(6724), pages 204-205, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:398:y:1999:i:6724:d:10.1038_18339
    DOI: 10.1038/18339
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/18339
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/18339?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Juutinen, Artti & Monkkonen, Mikko, 2004. "Testing alternative indicators for biodiversity conservation in old-growth boreal forests: ecology and economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1-2), pages 35-48, September.
    2. Targetti, Stefano & Viaggi, Davide & Cuming, David & Sarthou, J.P. & Choisis, J.P., "undated". "Assessing the costs of measuring biodiversity: methodological and empirical issues," 120th Seminar, September 2-4, 2010, Chania, Crete 109414, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Jacob R. Fooks & Kent D. Messer & Maik Kecinski, 2018. "A Cautionary Note on the Use of Benefit Metrics for Cost-Effective Conservation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(4), pages 985-999, December.
    4. Perhans, Karin & Glöde, Dan & Gilbertsson, Jessica & Persson, Anette & Gustafsson, Lena, 2011. "Fine-scale conservation planning outside of reserves: Cost-effective selection of retention patches at final harvest," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 771-777, February.
    5. Diego Juffe-Bignoli & Thomas M Brooks & Stuart H M Butchart & Richard B Jenkins & Kaia Boe & Michael Hoffmann & Ariadne Angulo & Steve Bachman & Monika Böhm & Neil Brummitt & Kent E Carpenter & Pat J , 2016. "Assessing the Cost of Global Biodiversity and Conservation Knowledge," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-22, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:398:y:1999:i:6724:d:10.1038_18339. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.