Deforestation pressure and biological reserve planning: a conceptual approach and an illustrative application for Costa Rica [An article from: Resource and Energy Economics]

This digital document is a journal article from Resource and Energy Economics, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
An index of 'deforestation pressure' is suggested as useful for reserve planning alongside the currently used information on the species present at candidate sites. For any location, the index value is correlated with threats to habitat and thus also survival probabilities over time for members of species dependent on that habitat. Threats in the absence of reserves are key information for planning new reserves. The index is estimated using a regression approach derived from a dynamic, micro-economic model of land use, with data on observed clearing of forest over space and time as well as biophysical and socioeconomic factors in land returns. Applying an estimated threat (or probability of clearing) function for Costa Rica to locations of interest yields relevant estimates of sites' deforestation pressure, which are used to evaluate proposed reserves and to suggest other candidate sites.