International Nature Conservation

Nature Conservation 5/2008 — 21. 10. 2008 — International Nature Conservation

Protected Areas Worldwide: A Cost-benefit Analysis

analýza nákladů a přínosů

authors: Petr Mackovčin

Funds for biodiversity conservation, scarce to begin with, are lagging behind the conservation agenda, and risk bringing them to halt. Most of the funds available for protected areas worldwide are those high income countries' investments in their own countries. The costs for both the global terrestrial and marine protected areas networks including those not owned and managed by governments are estimated at USD 45 billion annually. Nevertheless, the amount represents only a small proportion of ecosystem service value, provided to humans by protected areas. The effective global reserve network on land and at sea would ensure the delivery of goods and services with an annual value of between approx. USD 4,400 and 5,200 billion, depending on the level of resource use permitted within protected areas. The benefit: cost ratio of a reserve system meeting minimum safe standards is therefore around 1:100. Financial mechanisms for protected area establishing and management include both more traditional (government budgetary allocations, protected areas entrance fees, tourism related incomes, private/charity donations, bilateral and multilateral aid, etc.) to more innovative ones, e.g. international and national green lotteries, “adopt a park” campaigns, cell phone based donations, national green markets incl. eco-labelling schemes and particularly, payments for ecosystem services. However, regions for which conservation benefits both biodiversity and ecosystem services cannot be identified unless ecosystem services can be quantified and valued and their areas of production mapped. It has been suggested that incorporating the spatial heterogeneity of costs could be even more important than incorporating of biological benefits.