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| Author: | Barton, D. N.(et al.) |
| Title: | Environmental service payments: Evaluating biodiversity conservation trade-offs and cost-efficiency in the Osa Conservation Area, Costa Rica |
| Journal: | Journal of Environmental Management
2009 : FEB, VOL. 90:2, p. 901-911 |
| Index terms: | cost effectiveness decision support systems biodiversity conservation Costa Rica data analysis |
| Freeterms: | payment for environmental services(PES) Osa Conservation Area(ACOSA) TARGET |
| Language: | eng |
| Abstract: | The cost-efficiency of payments for environmental services (PES) to private landowners in the Osa Conservation Area, Costa Rica, is evaluated in terms of the trade-off between biodiversity representation and opportunity costs of conservation to agricultural and forestry land-use. Based on available GIS data and an off-the-shelf software application called TARGET. It is found that the PES allocation criteria applied by authorities in 20022003 were more than twice as cost-efficient as criteria applied during 19992001. The results show the following: 1) a policy relevant assessment of the cost-effectiveness of PES relative to other conservation policies can be carried out at regional level using available studies and GIS data. 2) there are a number of data and conceptual limitations to using heuristic optimisation algorithms in the analysis of the cost-efficiency of PES. 3) site specific data on probabilities of land-use change, and a detailed specification of opportunity costs of farm land, labour and capital are required to use algorithms such as TARGET for ranking individual sites based on cost-efficiency. 4) despite its conceptual soundness for regional conservation analysis, biodiversity complementarity presents a practical challenge as a criterion for PES eligibility at farm level because it varies depending on the set of areas under PES contracts at any one time. |
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