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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.05.010 Byline: Anthony Leiman (a), Barry Standish (b), Antony Boting (c), Hugo van Zyl (d) Keywords: Air pollution; Economic efficiency; Marginal abatement cost; Cost-effectiveness; South Africa; Health care costs Abstract: Air pollutants often have adverse effects on human health. This paper investigates and ranks a set of policy and technological interventions intended to reduce such health costs in the high population density areas of South Africa. It initially uses a simple benefit-cost rule, later extended to capture sectoral employment impacts. Although the focus of state air quality legislation is on industrial pollutants, the most efficient interventions were found to be at household level. These included such low-cost interventions as training householders to place kindling above rather than below the coal in a fireplace and insulating roofs. The first non-household policies to emerge involved vehicle fuels and technologies. Most proposed industrial interventions failed a simple cost-benefit test. The paper's policy messages are that interventions should begin with households and that further industry controls are not yet justifiable in their present forms as these relate to the health care costs of such interventions. Author Affiliation: (a) School of Economics, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa (b) Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa (c) Strategic Economic Solutions, 3 Avery Avenue, Constantia, 7806 (d) Independent Economic Researchers, P.O. Box 1015, Greenpoint, 8051 Article History: Received 3 August 2005; Revised 17 February 2006; Accepted 5 May 2006

Protected areas (PAs) play an important role in conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem services, yet their effectiveness is undermined by funding shortfalls. Using lions (Panthera leo) as a proxy for PA health, we assessed available funding relative to budget requirements for PAs in Africa's savannahs. We compiled a dataset of 2015 funding for 282 state-owned PAs with lions. We applied three methods to estimate the minimum funding required for effective conservation of lions, and calculated deficits. We estimated minimum required funding as $978/km2 per year based on the cost of effectively managing lions in nine reserves by the African Parks Network; $1,271/km² based on modeled costs of managing lions at ≥50% carrying capacity across diverse conditions in 115 PAs; and $2,030/km² based on Packer et al.'s [Packer et al. (2013) Ecol Lett 16:635-641] cost of managing lions in 22 unfenced PAs. PAs with lions require a total of $1.2 to $2.4 billion annually, or ∼$1,000 to 2,000/km², yet received only $381 million annually, or a median of $200/km². Ninety-six percent of range countries had funding deficits in at least one PA, with 88 to 94% of PAs with lions funded insufficiently. In funding-deficit PAs, available funding satisfied just 10 to 20% of PA requirements on average, and deficits total $0.9 to $2.1 billion. African governments and the international community need to increase the funding available for management by three to six times if PAs are to effectively conserve lions and other species and provide vital ecological and economic benefits to neighboring communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]