Presently, the mountain gorilla in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is endangered, mainly by poaching and habitat loss. Revenue from gorilla tourism is shared with local communities, but the current scheme yields less-than-optimal conservation outcomes and therefore cannot be entrusted with long-term conservation. However, a performance-linked benefit sharing scheme, in which the park agency makes payments to the local community based on the increase in the gorilla population, can achieve socially optimal conservation.

Our results show that a preservation initiative that is aimed at increasing grazing and hunting opportunities would be supported by dryland communities. Although the Khomani San indigenous people are traditionally hunters and gatherers, over time a significant number have switched to livestock farming. Given that livestock farming is one of the main livelihood sources in the Kgalagadi dryland area, the Khomani San place a value on the ecosystem services that support their livelihood.

In this study, researchers met with Khomani San “bushmen” and Mier “agricultural” communities who live in or near the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa. The researchers proposed a biodiversity conservation programme that would include planting and protecting native trees, shrubs, and grasslands, and asked the local communities about their willingness to pay for the program.

Recent estimates reaffirm that conservation funds are insufficient to meet biodiversity conservation goals.  Organizations focused on biodiversity conservation therefore need to capitalize on investments that societies make in environmental protection that provide ancillary benefits to biodiversity. Here, we undertake the first assessment of the potential ancillary benefits from the ballot box in the United States, where citizens vote on referenda to conserve lands for reasons that may not include biodiversity directly but that indirectly might enhance biodiversity conservation.

In this guidebook, EfD Central America Director and Senior Research Fellow Francisco Alpizar together with Andrew Bovarnick provide a step-by-step introduction to Targeted Scenario Analysis (TSA), an innovative analytical approach, developed by UNDP that captures and presents the value of ecosystem services within decision making, to help make the business case for sustainable policy and investment choices.

This guidebook discusses the five steps that comprise a TSA. These steps include:

Monetary contributions might not be an appropriate welfare measure in Contingent Valuation (CV) when household incomes are very low. In such cases, willingness to pay (WTP) is restricted by household's ability to reduce the consumption of other goods in order to pay for the environmental good under valuation. Beneficiaries, however, may be willing to contribute their time to work on the project instead of paying money.

To understand variables that link the welfare, livelihood and the watershed is crucial when instituting the integrated watershed management. This requires having indicators to show changes of the condition of the welfare, livelihoods and watershed resources. However, the combination of livelihoods and welfare of the local communities who depend largely on watershed resources for income, food, energy and shelter have not been adequately considered elsewhere.

This study seeks to value ecosystem services in the Kgalagadi area in South Africa by applying the choice experiment technique. The values placed on dryland ecosystem services by indigenous communities are estimated using a conditional logit model, a random parameter logit model and a random parameter logit model with interactions.

The results show that local communities would prefer increased grazing, firewood collection, hunting opportunities, and harvesting of medicinal plants.
 

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, is a mechanism for providing financial rewards to countries that reduce carbon emissions caused by the loss and degradation of their forests. In concept, REDD resembles other Payment for Environmental Services (PES) programs. However, REDD emphasizes a reduction in deforestation and degradation rates from expected levels, also known as avoided deforestation and degradation.

Many protected areas or parks in developing countries have buffer zones at their boundaries to achieve the dual goals of protecting park resources and providing resource benefits to neighbouring people.