Environmental cost of using poor decision metrics to prioritize environmental projects

Conservation decision makers commonly use project‐scoring metrics that are inconsistent with theory on optimal ranking of projects. As a result, there may often be a loss of environmental benefits. We estimated the magnitudes of these losses for various metrics that deviate from theory in ways that are common in practice. These metrics included cases where relevant variables were omitted from the benefits metric, project costs were omitted, and benefits were calculated using a faulty functional form. We estimated distributions of parameters from 129 environmental projects from Australia, New Zealand, and Italy for which detailed analyses had been completed previously. The cost of using poor prioritization metrics (in terms of lost environmental values) was often high—up to 80% in the scenarios we examined. The cost in percentage terms was greater when the budget was smaller. The most costly errors were omitting information about environmental values (up to 31% loss of environmental values), omitting project costs (up to 35% loss), omitting the effectiveness of management actions (up to 9% loss), and using a weighted‐additive decision metric for variables that should be multiplied (up to 23% loss). The latter 3 are errors that occur commonly in real‐world decision metrics, in combination often reducing potential benefits from conservation investments by 30–50%. Uncertainty about parameter values also reduced the benefits from investments in conservation projects but often not by as much as faulty prioritization metrics.     

Accounting for enforcement costs in the spatial allocation of marine zones

Marine fish stocks are in many cases extracted above sustainable levels, but they may be protected through restricted‐use zoning systems. The effectiveness of these systems typically depends on support from coastal fishing communities. High management costs including those of enforcement may, however, deter fishers from supporting marine management. We incorporated enforcement costs into a spatial optimization model that identified how conservation targets can be met while maximizing fishers’ revenue. Our model identified the optimal allocation of the study area among different zones: no‐take, territorial user rights for fisheries (TURFs), or open access. The analysis demonstrated that enforcing no‐take and TURF zones incurs a cost, but results in higher species abundance by preventing poaching and overfishing. We analyzed how different enforcement scenarios affected fishers’ revenue. Fisher revenue was approximately 50% higher when territorial user rights were enforced than when they were not. The model preferentially allocated area to the enforced‐TURF zone over other zones, demonstrating that the financial benefits of enforcement (derived from higher species abundance) exceeded the costs. These findings were robust to increases in enforcement costs but sensitive to changes in species’ market price. We also found that revenue under the existing zoning regime in the study area was 13–30% lower than under an optimal solution. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for both the benefits and costs of enforcement in marine conservation, particularly when incurred by fishers. Justificación de los Costos de Aplicación en la Asignación Espacial de Zonas Marinas     

Metal composition of arrow squid (Nototodarus sloanii [Gray 1849]) from the Chatham Rise,New Zealand: implications for human consumption

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Cephalopods are important in the diets of humans and many other apex predators, and can play an important role in the bioaccumulation of metals. In...     

Dynamics and the economics of carbon sequestration: common oversights and their implications

Accurate assessment of the cost of carbon sequestration is important for the development of mitigation policies globally. Given that sequestration in soils or vegetation is a lengthy process, such assessment requires financial discounting and making realistic assumptions about changes over time in the rate of sequestration, the price of carbon, and the opportunity cost incurred by adopting sequestration practices. Our objective is to demonstrate how these assumptions affect estimates of the cost of sequestration-based mitigation strategies. Using an Australian case study of soil carbon sequestration, our estimates of the carbon price required for financial viability are highly sensitive to dynamic assumptions, varying by a factor of four with different assumptions. Yet the influence of these time-related assumptions is poorly acknowledged in the literature, with many studies either failing to disclose their assumptions, or employing questionable assumptions and methods. Recommended global strategies are for researchers to report their assumptions related to dynamics much more transparently and to improve their research methods and the realism of their assumptions when analysing the economics of carbon sequestration. We recommend that policymakers become better aware of the issues created by dynamics, so that they are able to validly interpret assessments of the cost of sequestration and to ensure that they design policies in a way that facilitates fair comparison of the costs of mitigation strategies that operate over different timescales.     

Conducting and delivering integrated research to influence land-use policy: salinity policy in Australia

Researchers can find the process of engaging with policy to be both rewarding and frustrating. In the context of land-use policy, we discuss various aspects of the research-policy nexus, including the various influences of research and policy on land use, the adoption of research results by policy makers, differences between policy and research, and the roles that researchers can play in policy. We present a case study from Australia in which a range of research into land use was integrated to develop an investment framework for policy makers and natural resource managers. We conclude that, to enhance their influence on land-use policy, researchers should strive to: understand the policy maker's perspective, practice excellent communication, be solution oriented, find a champion, avoid appearances of vested interest, and be simple, patient, persistent, resilient, responsive and timely.