IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-12-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Conservation Return on Investment Analysis: A Review of Results, Methods, and New Directions

Author

Listed:
  • Boyd, James

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Siikamaki, Juha

    (Resources for the Future)

Abstract

Conservation investments are increasingly evaluated on the basis of their return on investment (ROI). Conservation ROI analysis quantitatively measures the costs, benefits, and risks of investments so conservancies can rank or prioritize them. This paper surveys the existing conservation ROI and related literatures. We organize our synthesis around the way studies treat recurring, core elements of ROI, as a guide for practitioners and consumers of future ROI analyses. ROI analyses involve quantification of a consistent set of elements, including the definition and measurement of the conservation objective as well as identification of the relevant baselines, the type of conservation investments evaluated, and investment costs. We document the state of the art, note some open questions, and provide suggestions for future improvements in data and methods. We also describe ways ROI analysis can be extended to a broader suite of conservation outcomes than biodiversity conservation, which is the typical focus.

Suggested Citation

  • Boyd, James & Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca & Siikamaki, Juha, 2012. "Conservation Return on Investment Analysis: A Review of Results, Methods, and New Directions," RFF Working Paper Series dp-12-01, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-12-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-12-01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John F. Lamoreux & John C. Morrison & Taylor H. Ricketts & David M. Olson & Eric Dinerstein & Meghan W. McKnight & Herman H. Shugart, 2006. "Global tests of biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7081), pages 212-214, March.
    2. Richard Carson & Nicholas Flores & Norman Meade, 2001. "Contingent Valuation: Controversies and Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 19(2), pages 173-210, June.
    3. Stephen Polasky & Erik Nelson & Derric Pennington & Kris Johnson, 2011. "The Impact of Land-Use Change on Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Returns to Landowners: A Case Study in the State of Minnesota," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 219-242, February.
    4. White, Ben & Sadler, Rohan, 2012. "Optimal conservation investment for a biodiversity-rich agricultural landscape," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-21, March.
    5. Paul J. Ferraro, 2003. "Assigning priority to environmental policy interventions in a heterogeneous world," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 27-43.
    6. Carissa J Klein & Natalie C Ban & Benjamin S Halpern & Maria Beger & Edward T Game & Hedley S Grantham & Alison Green & Travis J Klein & Stuart Kininmonth & Eric Treml & Kerrie Wilson & Hugh P Possing, 2010. "Prioritizing Land and Sea Conservation Investments to Protect Coral Reefs," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(8), pages 1-8, August.
    7. Adina M. Merenlender, 2006. "Habitat and Open Space at Risk of Land-Use Conversion: Targeting Strategies for Land Conservation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(1), pages 28-42.
    8. Nancy E. Bockstael, 1996. "Modeling Economics and Ecology: The Importance of a Spatial Perspective," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1168-1180.
    9. Kerrie A Wilson, 2007. "Conserving Biodiversity Efficiently: What to Do, Where, and When," Working Papers id:1202, eSocialSciences.
    10. David Layton & Juha Siikamäki, 2009. "Payments for Ecosystem Services Programs: Predicting Landowner Enrollment and Opportunity Cost Using a Beta-Binomial Model," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 44(3), pages 415-439, November.
    11. H. Spencer Banzhaf & Wallace E. Oates & James N. Sanchirico, 2010. "Success and design of local referenda for land conservation," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 769-798.
    12. Loomis, John B. & Rosenberger, Randall S., 2006. "Reducing barriers in future benefit transfers: Needed improvements in primary study design and reporting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 343-350, December.
    13. Stephen Polasky & Jeffrey D. Camm & Brian Garber-Yonts, 2001. "Selecting Biological Reserves Cost-Effectively: An Application to Terrestrial Vertebrate Conservation in Oregon," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(1), pages 68-78.
    14. Norman Myers & Russell A. Mittermeier & Cristina G. Mittermeier & Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca & Jennifer Kent, 2000. "Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities," Nature, Nature, vol. 403(6772), pages 853-858, February.
    15. K. E. McConnell, 1992. "On-Site Time in the Demand for Recreation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 74(4), pages 918-925.
    16. Brendan Fisher & Stephen Polasky & Thomas Sterner, 2011. "Conservation and Human Welfare: Economic Analysis of Ecosystem Services," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(2), pages 151-159, February.
    17. C. R. Margules & R. L. Pressey, 2000. "Systematic conservation planning," Nature, Nature, vol. 405(6783), pages 243-253, May.
    18. Boyd, James & Banzhaf, H. Spencer, 2006. "What Are Ecosystem Services?," RFF Working Paper Series dp-06-02, Resources for the Future.
    19. Polasky, Stephen, 2008. "What's Nature Done for You Lately: Measuring the Value of Ecosystem Services," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 23(2), pages 1-5.
    20. Robert Johnston, 2007. "Choice experiments, site similarity and benefits transfer," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 38(3), pages 331-351, November.
    21. Montgomery Claire A. & Brown Jr. , Gardner M. & Adams Darius M., 1994. "The Marginal Cost of Species Preservation: The Northern Spotted Owl," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 111-128, March.
    22. Newburn, David A. & Berck, Peter & Merenlender, Adina, 2004. "Spatial Targeting Strategies For Land Conservation," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20206, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    23. Boyd, James & Krupnick, Alan, 2009. "The Definition and Choice of Environmental Commodities for Nonmarket Valuation," RFF Working Paper Series dp-09-35, Resources for the Future.
    24. Costello, Christopher & Polasky, Stephen, 2004. "Dynamic reserve site selection," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 157-174, June.
    25. Kerrie A Wilson & Emma C Underwood & Scott A Morrison & Kirk R Klausmeyer & William W Murdoch & Belinda Reyers & Grant Wardell-Johnson & Pablo A Marquet & Phil W Rundel & Marissa F McBride & Robert L , 2007. "Conserving Biodiversity Efficiently: What to Do, Where, and When," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(9), pages 1-12, August.
    26. Babcock, Bruce A. & Lakshminarayan, P. G. & Wu, J. & Zilberman, David, 1997. "Targeting Tools for the Purchase of Environmental Amenities," Staff General Research Papers Archive 5220, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    27. C. David L. Orme & Richard G. Davies & Malcolm Burgess & Felix Eigenbrod & Nicola Pickup & Valerie A. Olson & Andrea J. Webster & Tzung-Su Ding & Pamela C. Rasmussen & Robert S. Ridgely & Ali J. Statt, 2005. "Global hotspots of species richness are not congruent with endemism or threat," Nature, Nature, vol. 436(7053), pages 1016-1019, August.
    28. Peter J. Mumby & Alasdair J. Edwards & J. Ernesto Arias-González & Kenyon C. Lindeman & Paul G. Blackwell & Angela Gall & Malgosia I. Gorczynska & Alastair R. Harborne & Claire L. Pescod & Henk Renken, 2004. "Mangroves enhance the biomass of coral reef fish communities in the Caribbean," Nature, Nature, vol. 427(6974), pages 533-536, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kousky, Carolyn & Walls, Margaret, 2014. "Floodplain conservation as a flood mitigation strategy: Examining costs and benefits," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 119-128.
    2. Marjan van den Belt & Daniella Blake, 2015. "Investing in Natural Capital and Getting Returns: An Ecosystem Service Approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(7), pages 667-677, November.
    3. Lima, Letícia Santos de & Ramos Barón, Pablo Andres & Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio & Krueger, Tobias, 2019. "Will PES Schemes Survive in the Long-term Without Evidence of Their Effectiveness? Exploring Four Water-related Cases in Colombia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 211-223.
    4. Jianxin Yang & Jian Gong & Wenwu Tang, 2019. "Prioritizing Spatially Aggregated Cost-Effective Sites in Natural Reserves to Mitigate Human-Induced Threats: A Case Study of the Qinghai Plateau, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-23, March.
    5. Kousky, Carolyn & Walls, Margaret & Chu, Ziyan, 2013. "Flooding and Resilience: Valuing Conservation Investments in a World with Climate Change," RFF Working Paper Series dp-13-38, Resources for the Future.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John A. Gallo & Amanda T. Lombard & Richard M. Cowling, 2022. "Conservation Planning for Action: End-User Engagement in the Development and Dual-Centric Weighting of a Spatial Decision Support System," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Kim, Taeyoung & Cho, Seong-Hoon & Larson, Eric R. & Armsworth, Paul R., 2014. "Protected area acquisition costs show economies of scale with area," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 122-132.
    3. Duke, Joshua M. & Dundas, Steven J. & Johnston, Robert J. & Messer, Kent D., 2014. "Prioritizing payment for environmental services: Using nonmarket benefits and costs for optimal selection," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 319-329.
    4. Lewis, David J. & Plantinga, Andrew J. & Nelson, Erik & Polasky, Stephen, 2011. "The efficiency of voluntary incentive policies for preventing biodiversity loss," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 192-211, January.
    5. Lewis, David J., 2010. "An economic framework for forecasting land-use and ecosystem change," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 98-116, April.
    6. Josie Carwardine & Kerrie A Wilson & Matt Watts & Andres Etter & Carissa J Klein & Hugh P Possingham, 2008. "Avoiding Costly Conservation Mistakes: The Importance of Defining Actions and Costs in Spatial Priority Setting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(7), pages 1-6, July.
    7. McBride, Marissa F. & Wilson, Kerrie A. & Burger, Jutta & Fang, Yi-Chin & Lulow, Megan & Olson, David & O’Connell, Mike & Possingham, Hugh P., 2010. "Mathematical problem definition for ecological restoration planning," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(19), pages 2243-2250.
    8. Gren, Ing-Marie & Carlsson, Mattias, 2011. "Estimation of cost functions for preserving biodiversity in Swedish forests," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 114596, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Soh, Moonwon & Cho, Seong-Hoon & Yu, Edward & Boyer, Christopher & English, Burton, 2018. "Targeting Payments for Ecosystem Services Given Ecological and Economic Objectives," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266502, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    10. Polasky, Stephen & Costello, Christopher & McAusland, Carol, 2004. "On trade, land-use, and biodiversity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 911-925, September.
    11. Eppink, Florian V. & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2007. "Ecological theories and indicators in economic models of biodiversity loss and conservation: A critical review," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 284-293, March.
    12. Cho, Seong-Hoon & Soh, Moonwon & English, Burton C. & Yu, T. Edward & Boyer, Christopher N., 2019. "Targeting payments for forest carbon sequestration given ecological and economic objectives," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 214-226.
    13. Ando, Amy W. & Getzner, Michael, 2006. "The roles of ownership, ecology, and economics in public wetland-conservation decisions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 287-303, June.
    14. Cho, Seong-Hoon & Kim, Taeyoung & Larson, Eric R. & Armsworth, Paul R., 2017. "Economies of scale in forestland acquisition costs for nature conservation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 73-82.
    15. Brad H McRae & Sonia A Hall & Paul Beier & David M Theobald, 2012. "Where to Restore Ecological Connectivity? Detecting Barriers and Quantifying Restoration Benefits," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-12, December.
    16. Kathleen P. Bell & Timothy J. Dalton, 2007. "Spatial Economic Analysis in Data‐Rich Environments," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 487-501, September.
    17. Claron, Charles & Mikou, Mehdi & Levrel, Harold & Tardieu, Léa, 2022. "Mapping urban ecosystem services to design cost-effective purchase of development rights programs: The case of the Greater Paris metropolis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    18. Herkt, K. Matthias B. & Barnikel, Günter & Skidmore, Andrew K. & Fahr, Jakob, 2016. "A high-resolution model of bat diversity and endemism for continental Africa," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 320(C), pages 9-28.
    19. Takuya Iwamura & Kerrie A Wilson & Oscar Venter & Hugh P Possingham, 2010. "A Climatic Stability Approach to Prioritizing Global Conservation Investments," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-9, November.
    20. Suter, Jordan F. & Conrad, Jon M. & Gomes, Carla P. & van Hoeve, Willem Jan & Sabharwal, Ashish, 2008. "Optimal Corridor Design for Grizzly Bear in the U.S. Northern Rockies," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6207, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    return on investment; conservation planning; reserve site selection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q20 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
    • Q30 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - General
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-12-01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.