Estimating the impacts of conservation on ecosystem services and poverty by integrating modeling and evaluation.

ABSTRACT: Scholars have made great advances in modeling and mapping ecosystem services, and in assigning economic values to these services. This modeling and valuation scholarship is often disconnected from evidence about how actual conservation programs have affected ecosystem services, however. Without a stronger evidence base, decision makers find it difficult to use the insights from modeling and valuation to design effective policies and programs. To strengthen the evidence base, scholars have advanced our understanding of the causal pathways between conservation actions and environmental outcomes, but their studies measure impacts on imperfect proxies for ecosystem services (e.g., avoidance of deforestation). To be useful to decision makers, these impacts must be translated into changes in eco

SUBMITTER: Ferraro PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4475938 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature