Ecological Compensation in Dutch Highway Planning

The ecological compensation principle was introduced by the Dutch government in 1993. This principle is designed to enhance the input of nature conservation interests in decision-making on large-scale development projects and to counterbalance the ecological impacts of such developments when implemented. This article evaluates the application of the Dutch compensation principle in highway planning. Six current highway projects reveal consistent implementation of this principle, although provincial policies on compensation and a national method for identifying compensation measures are still under development. As the planning process has not yet been completed for all the projects, no general conclusions can be drawn on the impact of the compensation principle on highway decision-making. Nevertheless, several examples show that the principle stimulates project initiators to develop alternative routes or route sections in order to avoid or reduce ecological impacts and the need for coherent compensation measures. If the compensation principle is to be properly implemented in the context of highway planning, particular attention should be paid to the following aspects: (1) sequential assessment of overall project legitimacy and the necessity of intersecting protected areas and compensation measures, (2) the initiator's attempts to avoid and mitigate ecological impacts in developing alternative routes prior to compensation for impacts, and (3) the role of uncertain ecological impacts in identifying compensation measures, especially those concerning habitat isolation.     

论自然保护区旅游活动的生态影响

自然保护区逐渐打破传统的消极保护模式，寻求保护与发展的协调，开展起旅游活动，但由此带来的生态影响不容忽视。本文从建立自然保护区的主要目的出发，就旅游活动对生物多样性及生态景观的影响进行分析，认为在自然保护区开展旅游活动，要对旅游活动强度与游客量进行合理控制，按照生态旅游的方法进行合理规划与管理，使保护区获得可持续发展。     

Do Open-Cycle Hatcheries Relying on Tourism Conserve Sea Turtles? Sri Lankan Developments and Economic–Ecological Considerations

By combining economic analysis of markets with ecological parameters, this article considers the role that tourism-based sea turtle hatcheries (of an open-cycle type) can play in conserving populations of sea turtles. Background is provided on the nature and development of such hatcheries in Sri Lanka. The modeling facilitates the assessment of the impacts of turtle hatcheries on the conservation of sea turtles and enables the economic and ecological consequences of tourism, based on such hatcheries, to be better appreciated. The results demonstrate that sea turtle hatcheries serving tourists can make a positive contribution to sea turtle conservation, but that their conservation effectiveness depends on the way they are managed. Possible negative effects are also identified. Economic market models are combined with turtle population survival relationships to predict the conservation impact of turtle hatcheries and their consequence for the total economic value obtained from sea turtle populations.     

大丰风电场建设对盐城自然保护区的生态影响分析

研究了大丰风电场一期、二期工程对盐城沿海湿地珍禽国家级自然保护区的生态影响.结果表明,在自然保护区实验区内建风电场会改变自然保护区生态结构和功能,使生物量减少,鸟类栖息地丧失,物种多样性下降,景观破碎化.提出了对策措施,以降低由于风电场的建设对自然保护区造成的生态影响.     

The use and effectiveness of the site of special scientific interest designation in the east midlands region of the nature conservancy council

This paper looks at the use and effectiveness of the Site of Special Scientific Interest designation in three counties in the East Midlands region of the Nature Conservancy Council, namely Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire. Using unpublished sources within the NCC an analysis is made of the SSSI system in practice since its inception in 1949. A number of findings relating to weaknesses in the designation and the operation of the designation system emerge. Each of these findings is discussed in turn with the presentation of the appropriate evidence from the county case studies.     

Environmental history: A piece in the puzzle for establishing plans for environmental management

Establishment of plans for environmental planning and management requires that a number of natural and societal factors must be taken into consideration. Insights into the inherent dynamics of nature as well as the role that past human activities have played for establishing the current condition of the landscape and the natural environment in general are essential. Many natural and man-made changes occur over time scales of decades or centuries, and these are difficult to comprehend without a historical perspective. Such a perspective can be obtained using palaeoecological studies, i.e. by geochemical and biological analyses of lake sediment and peat deposits. To illustrate the long-term dynamics of nature and particularly the role of man, we present here five case studies from Sweden concerning pollution, lake acidification, lake eutrophication, biodiversity, and landscape dynamics and conservation – topics of broad interests – and discuss benefits of including a longer time perspective in environmental management.     

关于建设项目对自然保护区生态影响专题评价的思考

建立自然保护区对保护生物圈及生物多样性具有十分重要的作用。我国已建立各种类型、不同级别的自然保护区2000多处。随着我国社会经济的发展,全国各地各类开发建设项目涌现,一些开发建设项目与自然保护区的保护要求发生矛盾。使开发建设项目避免或最大程度地减少对自然保护区的不利影响,做到保护与建设的双赢,是编写开发建设项目环境影响评价文件的一个重要内容。涉及自然保护区的开发建设项目一般要求编制对自然保护区影响的专题报告,本文根据工作实践,提出编制该类专题报告的主要内容及应注意的问题。     

The Impacts of Human Visitation on Mussel Bed Communities Along the California Coast: Are Regulatory Marine Reserves Effective in Protecting These Communities?

Rocky intertidal habitats frequently are used by humans for recreational, educational, and subsistence-harvesting purposes, with intertidal populations damaged by visitation activities such as extraction, trampling, and handling. California Marine Managed Areas, particularly regulatory marine reserves (MRs), were established to provide legal protection and enhancement of coastal resources and include prohibitions on harvesting intertidal populations. However, the effectiveness of MRs is unclear as enforcement of no-take laws is weak and no regulations protect intertidal species from other detrimental visitor impacts such as trampling. The goal of this study was two-fold: (1) to determine impacts from human visitation on California mussel populations (Mytilus californianus) and mussel bed community diversity; and (2) to investigate the effectiveness of regulatory MRs in reducing visitor impacts on these populations. Surveys of mussel populations and bed-associated diversity were compared: (1) at sites subjected to either high or low levels of human use, and (2) at sites either unprotected or with regulatory protection banning collecting. At sites subjected to higher levels of human visitation, mussel populations were significantly lower than low-use sites. Comparisons of mussel populations inside and outside of regulatory MRs revealed no consistent pattern suggesting that California no-take regulatory reserves may have limited effectiveness in protecting mussel communities. In areas where many people visit intertidal habitats for purposes other than collecting, many organisms will be affected by trampling, turning of rocks, and handling. In these cases, effective protection of rocky intertidal communities requires an approach that goes beyond the singular focus on collecting to reduce the full suite of impacts.     

Transaction Costs Economics of Irreplaceability: <Emphasis Type="Italic">ex ante</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">ex post</Emphasis> Evaluation of Conservation Networks’ Vulnerability to Environmental Shocks

The theoretical concept, “asset specificity,” is applied to real data in the context of Danish nature conservation network planning in order to produce illustrative examples of an economic measure of the network’s vulnerability to exogenous shocks to the species composition. Three different measures of asset specificity are quantified from the shadow value of eliminating a key species from the individual grid cells. This represents a novel approach and a different interpretation of the term, as it is conventionally used as a qualitative indicator in the transaction cost economics literature. Apart from supplementing existing cost measures with an indicator of risk associated with investments in protected areas, this study demonstrates how the estimation and interpretation of various asset specificity measures for geographical areas may qualify policy makers’ choice of policy instrument in conservation planning. This differs from the more intuitive approach of basing policy instrument choice solely on the rarity of the species in a given area.     

Protected Areas and Prospects for Endangered Species Conservation in Canada

Abstract:  Reserve networks figure prominently in conservation strategies that aim to reduce extinction rates. We tested the effectiveness of the current reserve network at protecting species at risk in Canada, where relatively extensive wilderness areas remain. We compared numbers of terrestrial species at risk included in existing reserves to randomly generated networks with the same total area and number of reserves. Existing reserve networks rarely performed better than randomly selected areas and several included fewer endangered species than expected by chance, particularly in the most biologically imperiled regions. The extent of protected area and density of species at risk were unrelated at either broad (countrywide) or finer spatial scales (50 × 50 km grids), although there was a tendency for the most threatened regions of the country to have few or no protected areas (1.5% of areas with >30 endangered species were in reserves). Although reserves will play a useful role in conserving endangered species that occur within them, reducing extinction rates in a region with much of the world's remaining wilderness will require integrating conservation strategies with agricultural and urban land-use plans outside formally protected areas.