The synergy between protected area effectiveness and economic growth.
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2024-07
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Protected areas conserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions but might impede local economic growth. Understanding the global patterns and predictors of different relationships between protected area effectiveness and neighboring community economic growth can inform better implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We assessed 10,143 protected areas globally with matched samples to address the non-random location of protected areas. Our results show that protected areas resist human-induced land cover changes and do not limit nightlight increases in neighboring settlements. This result is robust, using different matching techniques, parameter settings, and selection of covariates. We identify four types of relationships between land cover changes and nightlight changes for each protected area: "synergy," "retreat," and two tradeoff relationships. About half of the protected areas (47.5%) retain their natural land cover and do so despite an increase of nightlights in the neighboring communities. This synergy relationship is the most common globally but varies between biomes and continents. Synergy is less frequent in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and some developing areas, where most biodiversity resides and which suffer more from poverty. Smaller protected areas and those with better access to cities, moderate road density, and better baseline economic conditions have a higher probability of reaching synergy. Our results are promising, as the expansion of protected areas and increased species protection will rely more on conserving the human-modified landscape with smaller protected areas. Future interventions should address local development and biodiversity conservation together to achieve more co-benefits.
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Li, Binbin V, Shuyao Wu, Stuart L Pimm and Jingbo Cui (2024). The synergy between protected area effectiveness and economic growth. Current biology : CB, 34(13). pp. 2907–2920.e5. 10.1016/j.cub.2024.05.044 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31586.
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Binbin Li
Dr. Binbin Li is the Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Environmental Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. She holds a secondary appointment with the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She focuses on the synergy between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development under climate change. She has produced more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in the last six years and published in top journals, including Science, Science Advances, PNAS, Current Biology, Lancet and Conservation Biology. Her work has been widely reported by major media including BBC, CNN, China Daily and others. She has served as PI for more than 10 projects in recent years and secured more than 8.5 million RMB in funding. Dr. Li has been awarded EC50 by Explorers Club, one of the world’s most inspiring explorers. She has received the Outstanding Young Talent by National Natural Science Foundation of China, one of the top talent awards in China to recognize her leading role in scholarship. She serves as the co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) WCPA-protected planet specialist group, and serves on the IUCN Species Survival Commission, World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Prevention of Viral Spillover convened by Lancet and PPATS. Dr. Li also serves on the advisory board of State Forestry and Grassland Administration and Giant Panda National Park. She is the editor-in-chief of Integrative Conservation and associate editor of Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution. She also serves on the editorial board of Conservation Biology, Global Ecology and Conservation, Biodiversity Science and National Parks. Dr. Li is engaged in science communication and nature education. She has been awarded nature photographer of the Year in the Chinese National Geography China Wildlife Image and Video Competition in 2022. She is the founder of the China Anti-bird Collision Action Alliance, the largest citizen science project in China. She is also the board director of SilverLining Conservation Center, which aims to increase the capacity of storytelling for conservation practitioners and to change public behaviors using media instruments.
Stuart L. Pimm
Stuart Pimm is a world leader in the study of present-day extinctions and what can be done to prevent them. His research covers the reasons why species become extinct, how fast they do so, the global patterns of habitat loss and species extinction and, importantly, the management consequences of this research. Pimm received his BSc degree from Oxford University in 1971 and his Ph.D. from New Mexico State University in 1974. Pimm is the author of over 350 scientific papers and five books. He is one of the most highly cited environmental scientists. Pimm wrote the highly acclaimed assessment of the human impact to the planet: The World According to Pimm: a Scientist Audits the Earth in 2001. His commitment to the interface between science and policy has led to his testimony to both House and Senate Committees on the re-authorization of the Endangered Species Act. He was worked and taught in Africa for nearly 30 years on elephants, most recently lions — through National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative — but always on topics that relate to the conservation of wildlife and the ecosystems on which they depend. Other research areas include the Everglades of Florida and tropical forests in South America, especially the Atlantic Coast forest of Brazil and the northern Andes — two of the world's "hotspots" for threatened species. His international honours include the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2010), the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), the Society for Conservation Biology’s Edward T. LaRoe III Memorial Award (2006), and the Marsh Award for Conservation Biology, from the Marsh Christian Trust (awarded by the Zoological Society of London in 2004). Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, awarded him the William Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement in 2007. In 2019, he won the International Cosmos Prize, which recognised his founding and directing Saving Nature, www.savingnature.org, a non-profit that uses donations for carbon emissions offsets to fund local conservation groups in areas of exceptional tropical biodiversity to restore their degraded lands.
Jingbo Cui
Bio: Dr. Jingbo Cui is a tenured Associate Professor of Applied Economics at the Division of Social Sciences, Co-Director at the Environmental Research Center, and Director of Graduate Studies for the International Master of Environmental Policy (iMEP) program at Duke Kunshan University, Adjunct Professor and Ph.D. Supervisor at the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University. Before the current position, he was a Chu-Tian Junior Scholar from the Department of Education in Hubei Province, an Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management at Wuhan University, a Post-doctoral Research Associate, and a visiting scholar at Iowa State University. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Iowa State University, an M.S. in economics from Wuhan University, and a B.S. in economics and mathematics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China.
Dr. Cui’s research centers on Environmental Economics, the Economics of Innovation, and the Economics of Climate Change. His recent research has delved into intriguing topics such as the drivers and obstacles to low-carbon innovation, the economic and environmental impacts of China's climate policy and risk. His scholarly contributions have been published in top-tier academic journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Journal of Regional Science, The World Economy, and Energy Economics. He has served as a referee for leading journals in Environmental Economics, Agricultural Economics, and Economics of Innovation (i.e., JEEM, AJAE, JAERE, Nature Climate Change, and Research Policy), as Associate Editor for the Environment and Development Economics, and a member of the editorial council in JAERE. His research projects have been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (General Program, Junior Program, and Urgent Program) and the Jiangsu Qinglan Project.
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