BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION, AFFLUENCE AND POVERTY - MISMATCHED COSTS AND BENEFITS AND EFFORTS TO REMEDY THEM

Considerable progress has been made recently in identifying and measuring protected area economic costs and benefits in developing countries. This paper departs from this approach by concentrating not on the measurement of total economic costs and benefits from protected areas but on their distribution, Protected area benefits and costs are discussed at three separate spatial scales: local, national/regional, and global/transnational. The overall picture shows that economic benefits-although difficult to measure and varying from site to site-are limited on a local scale, increase somewhat on a regional/national level and then become potentially substantial on a transnational/global scale. The economic costs follow an opposite trend, from being locally significant, regionally and nationally moderate, and globally small. It is evident that there are few local incentives and very limited regional and national incentives for protected area establishment and management in developing countries. Very little, if any, empirical work has been done on the distribution of protected area costs and benefits. The conclusion of this paper is that such analysis can provide an essential bridge between economic valuation studies and the identification of necessary and practical action steps.