Economic Development and the Conservation of Large Carnivores

Conserving large carnivores in North America hinges on protecting vast wildlands, a strategy often assumed to carry significant economic costs in terms of jobs and income foregone. Using case studies, we tested whether there is enough evidence to support the assertion that the protection of wildlands is detrimental to economic development in the northern U.S. Rocky Mountains and the Rocky Mountains of southern British Columbia and Alberta. We analyzed employment and income trends in northwestern Montana (U.S.A.) for counties with a high degree of wildland protection versus counties with high levels of resource extraction and little wildland protection. Employment and personal income levels in "wilderness" counties grew faster than in "resource-extraction" counties. Wilderness counties also showed higher degrees of economic diversification and lower unemployment rates. No direct cause-and-effect relationship was established between wildlands protection and economic development, but to the assertion that protecting wildland habitat for large carnivores is detrimental to a region's economy, enough counterevidence is presented to suggest an alternative hypothesis: the protection of wilderness habitat that sustains wild carnivores such as grizzly bears ( Ursus arctos horribilis ) and wolves ( Canis lupus ) does not have a detrimental effect on local or regional economies. Evidence presented suggests that economic growth is stimulated by environmental amenities. Further, case studies in southern British Columbia and Alberta in Canada and the Greater Yellowstone region, in the U.S., where environmental protection has been explicitly recognized as an economic development strategy, suggest that environmental protection and economic development are complementary goals. In some areas, however, "amenity-based" economic growth is rapidly leading to urban sprawl and subsequent loss of wildlife habitat, and there is a need for growth management.