Stay by thy neighbor? Social organization determines the efficiency of biodiversity markets with spatial incentives

Authored by Martin Drechsler, Florian Hartig

Date Published: 2010-03

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2009.07.001

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: ODD Flow charts

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Market-based conservation instruments, such as payments, auctions or tradable permits, are environmental policies that create financial incentives for landowners to engage in voluntary conservation on their land. But what if ecological processes operate across property boundaries and land use decisions on one property influence ecosystem functions on neighboring sites? This paper examines how to account for such spatial externalities when designing market-based conservation instruments. We use an agent-based model to analyze different spatial metrics and their implications on land use decisions in a dynamic cost environment. The model contains a number of alternative submodels which differ in incentive design and social interactions of agents, the latter including coordinating as well as cooperating behavior of agents. We find that incentive design and social interactions have a strong influence on the spatial allocation and the costs of the conservation market. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tags

Agent-based models Land use Spatial externalities Biodiversity conservation Market-based instruments Spatial incentives