Jonathan M.H. Green

Financial Costs of Meeting Global Biodiversity Conservation Targets: Current Spending and Unmet Needs

Costs of Conservation In 2010, world governments agreed to a strategic plan for biodiversity conservation, including 20 targets to be met by 2020, through the Convention on Biological Diversity. Discussions on financing the plan have still not been resolved, partly because there is little information on the likely costs of meeting the targets. McCarthy et al. (p. 946, published online 11 October) estimate the financial costs for two of the targets relating to protected areas and preventing extinctions. Using data from birds, they develop models that can be extrapolated to the costs for biodiversity more broadly. Reducing extinction risk for all species is estimated to require in the region of U.S.

A Global Perspective on Trends in Nature-Based Tourism

4 billion annually, while the projected costs of establishing and maintaining protected areas may be as much as U.S.

Walk on the Wild Side: Estimating the Global Magnitude of Visits to Protected Areas

58 billion—although both sums are small, relative to the economic costs of ecosystem losses. Data for birds and protected area requirements yield estimated costs for maintaining worldwide diversity targets. World governments have committed to halting human-induced extinctions and safeguarding important sites for biodiversity by 2020, but the financial costs of meeting these targets are largely unknown. We estimate the cost of reducing the extinction risk of all globally threatened bird species (by ≥1 International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List category) to be U.S.

Measuring, modeling and mapping ecosystem services in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania

0.875 to

Towards regional, error-bounded landscape carbon storage estimates for data-deficient areas of the world.

1.23 billion annually over the next decade, of which 12% is currently funded. Incorporating threatened nonavian species increases this total to U.S.

The ecology and economics of shorebird conservation in a tropical human‐modified landscape

3.41 to

Research priorities for managing the impacts and dependencies of business upon food, energy, water and the environment

4.76 billion annually. We estimate that protecting and effectively managing all terrestrial sites of global avian conservation significance (11,731 Important Bird Areas) would cost U.S.

Using Changes in Agricultural Utility to Quantify Future Climate-Induced Risk to Conservation

65.1 billion annually. Adding sites for other taxa increases this to U.S.

Deforestation in an African biodiversity hotspot: Extent, variation and the effectiveness of protected areas

76.1 billion annually. Meeting these targets will require conservation funding to increase by at least an order of magnitude.

Estimating management costs of protected areas: A novel approach from the Eastern Arc Mountains, Tanzania

Falling attendance at United States and Japanese national parks has led to claims of a pervasive shift away from nature-based recreation. A global analysis, however, now suggests that while visit rates are declining slightly in some richer countries, elsewhere nature tourism is booming.