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Bird Community Conservation and Carbon Offsets in Western North America
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE, Vol 9, Iss 6, p e99292 (2014)
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2014.
-
Abstract
- Conservation initiatives to protect and restore valued species and communities in human-dominated landscapes face huge challenges linked to the cost of acquiring habitat. We ask how the sale of forest carbon offsets could reduce land acquisition costs, and how the alternate goals of maximizing α or β-diversity in focal communities could affect the prioritization land parcels over a range of conservation targets. Maximizing total carbon storage and carbon sequestration potential reduced land acquisition costs by up to 48%. Maximizing β rather than α-diversity within forest and savannah bird communities reduced acquisition costs by up to 15%, and when these solutions included potential carbon credit revenues, acquisition cost reductions up to 32% were achieved. However, the total cost of conservation networks increased exponentially as area targets increased in all scenarios. Our results indicate that carbon credit sales have the potential to enhance conservation outcomes in human-dominated landscapes by reducing the net acquisition costs of land conservation in old and maturing forests essential for the persistence of old forest plant and animal communities. Maximizing β versus α-diversity may further reduce costs by reducing the total area required to meet conservation targets and enhancing landscape heterogeneity. Although the potential value of carbon credit sales declined as a fraction of total acquisition costs, even conservative scenarios using a carbon credit value of $12.5/T suggest reductions in acquisition cost of up to $235 M, indicating that carbon credit sales could substantially reduce the costs of conservation.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Economics
Natural resource economics
Total cost
Economic Models
lcsh:Medicine
Social Sciences
Economic Geography
Carbon sequestration
01 natural sciences
Spatial and Landscape Ecology
Community Assembly
lcsh:Science
health care economics and organizations
Conservation Science
Multidisciplinary
Ecology
Geography
Environmental resource management
Carbon offset
Biodiversity
Terrestrial Environments
Biogeography
Community Ecology
Habitat
Environmental Economics
Research Article
Conservation of Natural Resources
Ecological Metrics
Spatial Economic Analysis
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
Birds
Ecological Economics
Cost Savings
Forest ecology
Animals
Revenue
Terrestrial Ecology
Carbon credit
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Land use
business.industry
lcsh:R
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Biology and Life Sciences
Restoration Ecology
15. Life on land
Economic Analysis
13. Climate action
North America
Earth Sciences
Bioindicators
lcsh:Q
business
Environmental Protection
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 9
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....4d73517a7a54bfd233199cf33475c636