Principles of Conservation Biology

1. Principles of Conservation Biology BIOL 4160

2. How do we ascribe value to biodiversity? • Direct use values • Consumptive use value • Productive use value • Indirect use values • Option values • Existence values • Bequest values

3. Consumptive Use Value Goods such as wild game and fuelwood that are consumed locally and do not appear on a national or international marketplace

4. Productive Use Value Products that are harvested from the wild and sold in either national or international commercial markets.

5. The Natural Pharmacy

7. Indirect Economic Values Environmental processes and ecosystem services that provide present and future economic benefits without being harvested or destroyed during use

8. Nonconsumptive Use Value Environmental processes and ecosystem services that provide present and future economic benefits without being harvested or destroyed during use

13. Human Health Benefits

14. Ecosystem productivity

15. Species Interactions Crop plants depend critically on insects, bats, and birds Harvested species (like fish) depend on insect and plant populations for food Forest trees depend on decomposers

17. Zion National Park

18. Corn fields in Canada AAFC researching the importance of wild pollinators in canola production systems Providing habitat for bees can boost crop yields Trying to figure out best mix of bee habitat and crops

20. Water and Soil Protection

21. Dust Bowl of the 1930s

22. NYC: Treatment or Protection? Water Filtration Plants: $8-9 Billion Protection of forests and watersheds: $1.5 billion

23. Climate Regulation Moderate local, regional, and global climate

24. Environmental Indicator Species • Species that serve as “early warning indicators” of the health of the environment • Much cheaper to look at lichen health than use expensive detection equipment • Clams/filter feeders in aquatic systems

25. Amenity Value Nonconsumptive activities provide huge revenues 350 million visitors to protected areas in the US each year

26. Industry, Ecology, and Ecotourism in Yellowstone Park

27. Ecotourism Visiting places and spending $$ to experience unusual biological communities Coral reefs, African Savannah, Galapagos, etc. Accounts for 20% of tourism revenue

28. The economic competitiveness of a country is not closely related to its environmental sustainability

29. Cheap Fish Bait Eggs are food for shorebirds Produce LAL - pharmaceutical

30. Thinking long term: Option Value Option Value: potential of biodiversity to provide an economic benefit to human society sometime in the future

31. Thinking long term: Existence Value Existence value: the amount people are willing to pay to prevent species from going extinct, habitats being destroyed and genetic variation being lost Can also think of this in terms of beneficiary or bequest value – how much will people pay to protect something for future generations.

33. California Condor Over $20 million spent on recovery

34. Ways of estimating economic value • Stated preferences • What people say they’d be willing to pay • Revealed preferences • What people actually pay • Hedonic pricing • Premiums people pay to enjoy natural habitat • Replacement costs • Discounting