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Although 30 years have passed since the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was adopted in 1992, few attempts have been made to evaluate its impact on protected areas. This study investigates the relationship between participation in the CBD and conservation effort in member countries, using an original dataset of 169 countries from 1992 to 2015. Our measure of conservation effort is the percentage of a country's terrestrial area under protection, which is the primary mechanism for achieving the CBD's conservation as distinct from its sustainable use or access and benefit-sharing objectives. We consider how protected area expansion relates to membership of the CBD, and a set of socio-economic and political variables that measure both the opportunity cost of conservation and national responsiveness to the demand for public goods. We find a positive and significant relationship between the area under protection, membership of the CBD, and a dummy for the Aichi biodiversity targets-Nagoya protocol. We also find that the area under protection is negatively related to measures of economic development and education (proxies for the opportunity cost of conservation), and positively associated with forest area (a proxy for species richness and endemism). We conclude that, at least for this measure of conservation effort, the CBD has had a significant impact, albeit moderated in predictable ways by the opportunity cost of conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 has led to the death or destruction of millions of domesticated and wild birds and caused hundreds of human deaths worldwide. As with other HPAIs, H5N1 outbreaks among poultry have generally been caused by contact with infected migratory waterfowl at the interface of wildlands and human-dominated landscapes. Using a case–control epidemiological approach, we analyzed the relation between habitat protection and H5N1 outbreaks in China from 2004 to 2017. We found that while proximity to unprotected waterfowl habitats and rice paddy generally increased outbreak risk, proximity to the most highly protected habitats (e.g., Ramsar-designated lakes and wetlands) had the opposite effect. Protection likely involves two mechanisms: the separation of wild waterfowl and poultry populations and the diversion of wild waterfowl from human-dominated landscapes toward protected natural habitats. Wetland protection could therefore be an effective means to control avian influenza while also contributing to avian conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Near real-time epidemic forecasting approaches are needed to respond to the increasing number of infectious disease outbreaks. In this paper, we retrospectively assess the performance of simple phenomenological models that incorporate early sub-exponential growth dynamics to generate short-term forecasts of the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in the UK. For this purpose, we employed the generalized-growth model (GGM) for pre-peak predictions and the generalized-Richards model (GRM) for post-peak predictions. The epidemic exhibits a growth-decelerating pattern as the relative growth rate declines inversely with time. The uncertainty of the parameter estimates (randp) narrows down and becomes more precise using an increasing amount of data of the epidemic growth phase. Indeed, using only the first 10-15 days of the epidemic, the scaling of growth parameter (p) displays wide uncertainty with the confidence interval for p ranging from values ~ 0.5 to 1.0, indicating that less than 15 epidemic days of data are not sufficient to discriminate between sub-exponential (i.e., p < 1) and exponential growth dynamics (i.e., p = 1). By contrast, using 20, 25, or 30 days of epidemic data, it is possible to recover estimates of p around 0.6 and the confidence interval is substantially below the exponential growth regime. Local and national bans on the movement of livestock and a nationwide cull of infected and contiguous premises likely contributed to the decelerating trajectory of the epidemic. The GGM and GRM provided useful 10-day forecasts of the epidemic before and after the peak of the epidemic, respectively. Short-term forecasts improved as the model was calibrated with an increasing length of the epidemic growth phase. Phenomenological models incorporating generalized-growth dynamics are useful tools to generate short-term forecasts of epidemic growth in near real time, particularly in the context of limited epidemiological data as well as information about transmission mechanisms and the effects of control interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correction to: Environmental Management https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01818-9 In this article, the alignment and the values under the row "pseudo-R2" in Table 2 has been corrected. The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01818-9. [Extracted from the article]

Three interrelated world trends may be exacerbating emerging zoonotic risks: income growth, urbanization, and globalization. Income growth is associated with rising animal protein consumption in developing countries, which increases the conversion of wild lands to livestock production, and hence the probability of zoonotic emergence. Urbanization implies the greater concentration and connectedness of people, which increases the speed at which new infections are spread. Globalization-the closer integration of the world economy-has facilitated pathogen spread among countries through the growth of trade and travel. High-risk areas for the emergence and spread of infectious disease are where these three trends intersect with predisposing socioecological conditions including the presence of wild disease reservoirs, agricultural practices that increase contact between wildlife and livestock, and cultural practices that increase contact between humans, wildlife, and livestock. Such an intersection occurs in China, which has been a 'cradle' of zoonoses from the Black Death to avian influenza and SARS. Disease management in China is thus critical to the mitigation of global zoonotic risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than two-thirds of all wild capture marine fish stocks are currently being exploited at or beyond the maximum sustainable yield. Many coastal systems, including the mangrove forests and coral reefs that serve as fish nurseries, have been severely depleted through coastal habitat conversion and land-based emissions. Nutrient runoff is responsible for an increasing number of dead zones-areas of the ocean so depleted of oxygen that they cannot sustain life. Reasons for this include the facts (a) that many ocean resources are effectively open access (b) that markets fail to signal the true scarcity of many marine resources, and (c) that governments fail either to protect against or to correct for the inability of markets to allocate resources. This paper considers the problems of overexploitation and pollution of marine systems, and reviews the impact of institutions on each problem. It then discusses the options for reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infectious animal and plant diseases introduced through international trade in goods and services are a classic example of market externality. The potential harm they do is visited on people other than those engaged in their export or import, and is not taken into account in reaching export or import decisions. The use of economic instruments to internalize market externalities has been shown to yield substantial benefits in many areas of economic activity. By confronting decision-makers with the expected damage they cause, instruments of this kind have forced decision-makers to take the wider costs of their actions into account. This paper reviews the arguments for extending the range of instruments currently used to manage trade-related pest and pathogen risks, and assesses the options for deploying new instruments in the existing regulatory environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented that discusses issue articles related to disease forecasting and risk with a focus on zoonotic diseases and novel infectious disease spread.

Does society benefit from private measures to mitigate infectious disease risks? Since mitigation reduces both peak prevalence and the number of people who fall ill, the answer might appear to be yes. But mitigation also prolongs epidemics and therefore the time susceptible people engage in activities to avoid infection. These avoidance activities come at a cost-in lost production or consumption, for example. Whether private mitigation yields net social benefits depends on the social weight given to the costs of illness and illness avoidance, now and into the future. We show that, for a large class of infectious diseases, private risk mitigation is socially beneficial. However, in cases where society discounts the future at either very low or very high rates relative to private individuals, or where it places a low weight on the private cost of illness, the social cost of illness under proportionate mixing (doing nothing) may be lower than the social cost of illness under preferential mixing (avoiding infectious individuals). That is, under some circumstances, society would prefer shorter, more intense epidemics without avoidance costs over longer, less intense epidemics with avoidance costs. A sobering (although not surprising) implication of this is that poorer societies should be expected to promote less private disease-risk mitigation than richer societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a multi-group epidemic framework via virtual dispersal where the risk of infection is a function of the residence time and local environmental risk. This novel approach eliminates the need to define and measure contact rates that are used in the traditional multi-group epidemic models with heterogeneous mixing. We apply this approach to a general n-patch SIS model whose basic reproduction number $${\mathcal {R}}_0 $$ is computed as a function of a patch residence-time matrix $${\mathbb {P}}$$ . Our analysis implies that the resulting n-patch SIS model has robust dynamics when patches are strongly connected: There is a unique globally stable endemic equilibrium when $${\mathcal {R}}_0>1 $$ , while the disease-free equilibrium is globally stable when $${\mathcal {R}}_0\le 1 $$ . Our further analysis indicates that the dispersal behavior described by the residence-time matrix $${\mathbb {P}}$$ has profound effects on the disease dynamics at the single patch level with consequences that proper dispersal behavior along with the local environmental risk can either promote or eliminate the endemic in particular patches. Our work highlights the impact of residence-time matrix if the patches are not strongly connected. Our framework can be generalized in other endemic and disease outbreak models. As an illustration, we apply our framework to a two-patch SIR single-outbreak epidemic model where the process of disease invasion is connected to the final epidemic size relationship. We also explore the impact of disease-prevalence-driven decision using a phenomenological modeling approach in order to contrast the role of constant versus state-dependent $${\mathbb {P}}$$ on disease dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematical epidemiology, one of the oldest and richest areas in mathematical biology, has significantly enhanced our understanding of how pathogens emerge, evolve, and spread. Classical epidemiological models, the standard for predicting and managing the spread of infectious disease, assume that contacts between susceptible and infectious individuals depend on their relative frequency in the population. The behavioral factors that underpin contact rates are not generally addressed. There is, however, an emerging a class of models that addresses the feedbacks between infectious disease dynamics and the behavioral decisions driving host contact. Referred to as 'economic epidemiology' or 'epidemiological economics,' the approach explores the determinants of decisions about the number and type of contacts made by individuals, using insights and methods from economics. We show how the approach has the potential both to improve predictions of the course of infectious disease, and to support development of novel approaches to infectious disease management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable development requires that per capita inclusive wealth-produced, human, and natural capital-does not decline over time. We investigate the impact of changes in nitrogen on inclusive wealth. There are two sides to the nitrogen problem. Excess use of nitrogen in some places gives rise to N-pollution, which can cause environmental damage. Insufficient replacement of nitrogen in other places gives rise to N-depletion, or loss of nutrient stocks. Neither is explicitly accounted for in current wealth measures, but both affect wealth. We calculate an index of net N-replacement, and investigate its relationship to wealth. In countries with low levels of relative N-loss, we find that the uncompensated loss of soil nitrogen in poorer countries is associated with declining rates of growth of inclusive per capita wealth. What is less intuitive is that increasing fertilizer application in both rich and poor countries can increase per capita inclusive wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Convention on Biological Diversity's () target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss was achieved by very few countries. Why? We use the theory of conservation implicit in the Hotelling model of non-renewable resource pricing to analyze the problem, distinguishing between the benefits to countries where conservation takes place, and to other countries. We estimate models for three taxonomic groups, and find that while individual countries value conservation within their borders, in poor countries this effect is dominated by the negative impact of income growth. International concessional financial contributions to conservation in poor countries are found to be statistically insignificant. We conclude that countries care about the biodiversity within their national borders, but only when development priorities permit, and only when it becomes scarce enough that its value grows more rapidly than the return on alternative assets. There is little evidence that high income countries yet care sufficiently about biodiversity in the places where it is most threatened to affect conservation outcomes there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most unique feature of Earth is the existence of life, and the most extraordinary feature of life is its diversity. Approximately 9 million types of plants, animals, protists and fungi inhabit the Earth. So, too, do 7 billion people. Two decades ago, at the first Earth Summit, the vast majority of the world's nations declared that human actions were dismantling the Earth's ecosystems, eliminating genes, species and biological traits at an alarming rate. This observation led to the question of how such loss of biological diversity will alter the functioning of ecosystems and their ability to provide society with the goods and services needed to prosper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supply of international environmental public goods must meet certain conditions to be socially efficient, and several reasons explain why they are currently undersupplied. Diagnosis of the public goods failure associated with particular ecosystem services is critical to the development of the appropriate international response. There are two categories of international environmental public goods that are most likely to be undersupplied. One has an additive supply technology and the other has a weakest link supply technology. The degree to which the collective response should be targeted depends on the importance of supply from any one country. In principle, the solution for the undersupply lies in payments designed to compensate local providers for the additional costs they incur in meeting global demand. Targeted support may take the form of direct investment in supply (the Global Environment Facility model) or of payments for the benefits of supply (the Payments for Ecosystem Services model). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What makes recycling work? We study the factors driving household waste disposal and recycling in 18 cities in Taiwan and Japan in order to understand the impact of alternative waste management incentives. We show that this depends on the effect of distinct policies on the relative costs of the main alternative disposal methods: recycling, disposal to landfill and illegal dumping. The willingness both to recycle and to dispose to landfill depends on the relative costs of the waste collection regime, and these are dominated by the time cost of alternative disposal methods. The higher the frequency of waste collection, the less recycling and the more disposal to landfill there will be. This is because frequent collection reduces the marginal time-cost of disposal to landfill. Curbside collection of recyclable material, and the frequency of that collection, has a similar effect on the recycling rate. Although direct incentives, such as unit pricing are important in the waste disposal decision, recycling depends primarily on management of the time-costs it involves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, forest management has moved towards a landscape approach reflecting a mix of social, environmental and economic values. In this paper, we evaluate the effect on harvesting decisions of the spatial attributes of communal forests in Galicia. We first model the forest landscape management problem within a bioeconomic framework, which allows the identification of optimal clear-cutting strategies. This framework makes it possible to model a Faustmann-type rotation at the landscape level. The empirical analysis uses data from communal forests in Galicia, Spain. Under communal ownership, members of a rural community have rights to forest resources, but not rights to the forest itself. The management of communal forests integrates multiple forest uses within the decision making process. Given the communal nature of forest rights, and given these multiple uses, we show that landscape patterns—fragmentation, diversity and clumpiness—determine rotation periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been recognized that major drivers of biodiversity loss include both the harvest of wild species and the conversion of habitat for productive purposes. Land that is converted may or may not be lost as habitat for many species. In some cases, monoculture production for example, land conversion reduces the number niches and hence the level of biodiversity. In other cases, it has the opposite effect. We address the problem of anthropogenic biodiversity change due to the effects of both harvest rates and land use decisions on landscape heterogeneity. If the optimal structure of the landscape is extremely homogeneous, forces of competitive exclusion will lead to a single surviving species. If it is extremely heterogeneous, multiple species will coexist, with each species exclusively dominating the patch type to which it is best suited. Where changes in biodiversity due to changes in landscape heterogeneity are not taken into account in land use decisions, they are external effects of those decisions. We identify measures of these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We hypothesize that institutions such as agricultural cooperatives influence regional levels of variety diversity through input supply, processing or marketing functions. This diversity can also affect yield, a partial measure of crop productivity. We test these hypotheses with data from southern Italy, a mega-diversity spot and centre of diversity for durum wheat. Cooperatives in the southern regions of Italy process farmers’ harvests of durum wheat into bread, label it, and sell it locally. In this relatively marginalized region of the country, cooperatives enable farmers to capture more of the value of the final product and reduce marketing costs. To test the hypothesis, we apply a two-stage estimation approach with a Cobb-Douglas production function and panel data analysis. Findings suggest that the density of cooperatives in a region is associated with greater spatial diversity in wheat varieties grown, and that, over a 14-year period, this diversity positively affected crop yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the overgrazing problem in low income countries, paying special attention to the joint influence of the economic and natural “environments” within which livestock farmers operate. The context is the argument that liberalisation of agricultural product markets will encourage the sustainable use of environmental resources. The paper explores the link between economic conditions and ecologically sustainable use of resources in semi-arid lands, using an infinite-horizon stochastic control range management model. The approach makes it possible to establish, for any given initial conditions, whether there exists an optimal policy that is ecologically sustainable under those conditions, and what economic environment and initial endowments would be sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity" that was published in the 2012 issue is presented.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is a hypothesis which implies that it is possible to ''grow out of environmental degradation''. Most theoretical models of the EKC relation have not accounted for transboundary and intergenerational externalities nor have empirical studies provided evidence that validates an inverted U shaped relation between environmental degradation and economic growth for pollution problems where the effects are far-displaced or are long-delayed. This paper integrates the theory of transboundary externalities into the most common theoretical framework applied to the EKC hypothesis. It shows that where a significant proportion of the environmental impacts ofeconomic activity occurs outside the territories in which those activities take place, the de-linking of growth and environmental degradation is less likely to happen. This proposition is demonstrated by assuming that decisionmakers have a Nash-type non cooperative strategicbehavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecological concept of resilience has begun to inform analysis ofchange in economy-environment systems. The linkages between resilience and the stability of dynamical systems are discussed, along with its role in understanding of the evolution of such systems. Particularlinkages discussed include those between resilience, biodiversity and the sustainability of alternative states. Recent developments in modelling the resilience of joint economy-environment systems suggest the advantages of analysing change in the system as a Markov process, the transition probabilities between states offering a natural measure of the resilience of the system in such states. It is argued that this 'emergent property` of the collaboration between ecology and economics has far-reaching implications for the way we think about, modeland manage the environmental sustainability of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]