14 DAY TRIAL // The most doubtful voices over ecological issues have long been the economists. Many of them see the green movement as undermining the economic development. However, in countries such as the United States where there exists a strong tradition of private property rights, many conservationist organizations have started buying land for the very purpose of maintaining the biodiversity.
These types of land achievements have become so important that they have started to have large scale economic impact on the prices of land. Ecologists Gretchen Daily of Stanford University and Peter Kareiva of the Nature Conservancy teamed up with a pair of economists to learn more about the interplay between conservation and real estate markets. They have analyzed the market phenomenon and warned that, if not done carefully, such land acquisitions can actually backfire and destroy biodiversity instead of protecting it.
"Until recently, conservation buyers were a very small part of the land market - they didn't have much impact," says Daily. "But now there are over 1,500 land trusts operating in the United States, and together they can change land prices and patterns of development. Land trusts have become so powerful that their collective purchases could actually backfire by drawing development toward sites with high conservation value."
In other words, when such trusts buy land somewhere for conservation, they drive away from those areas the investors willing to put money for economic development - which often includes the destruction of the natural habitat. The investors go somewhere else. Thus, if lands outside of nature reserves also have considerable ecological value, the very land acquisition may lead to their demise. "Protecting lands that lack biodiversity is not only a waste of money but undermines future opportunities by increasing development pressure on unprotected lands", said Daily.
Another point is that the trusts may not have enough money to but a large natural system, and thus they may buy only a portion of it - thinking that less is better than nothing. But the nature reserve itself is usually a high selling point, making the surrounding private land even more attractive for developers.
"Land trusts are good at integrating biological, recreational and other considerations in setting priorities for making purchases", said Daily. "Now, for the first time, it's becoming important to factor in land market dynamics as well, or well-intentioned actions may do more harm than good."
"The ecological value of lands outside nature reserves and the importance of accurate species inventories cannot be overstated if we are to pursue conservation in a responsible manner. These results provide a compelling demonstration of the need for land trusts to become more economically savvy in their operations."
The Nature Conservancy, the world's largest land trust, has spent in the last 50 years about $6 billion buying more than 6.5 million hectares of private land in the United States.
"This paper takes an important step in integrating economic analysis and conservation planning. Such integration will likely make conservation planning much more effective," wrote environmental economist Steve Polasky of the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, in a commentary accompanying the paper.