Natalie Wiley

NRS 383

Gregory Latta

April 13th, 2018

Term Paper

Abstract

America’s endangered wildlife is something that affects our nation; whether it is cultural,

economic, or for public concern. Wildlife can provide services such as grazing or producing

foods. They can also attract tourists which can bring in an economic benefit to communities.

With species that have such a high value to our world, we have seen little progress in providing

safe land or for proper funding. People in areas that have wildlife that are important to their

ecological communities engage in activities such as hunting, bird watching, fishing and

recreation. These types of activities bring economic benefit to communities if there is an

abundance of wildlife. Although, endangered species must have areas where they are not harmed

by these activities in order to keep their ecological impact. Reallocation and development of

proper funding will provide us the opportunity to develop these lands. Representative Jeff

Fortenberry from Nebraska has proposed the bill H.R. 4647: Recovering America’s Wildlife Act

in an attempt to reallocate and distribute proper state funding for America’s endangered wildlife.

More funding will allow more development of areas that can restore endangered species.

Introduction

The goal of this bill is to be able to preserve land and wildlife for future generations to

enjoy through recreation. Recovering species that are listed as threatened or endangered and to

prevent fish and wildlife species from diminishing to the point of no return will require federal
protection under the Endangered Species Act. Being able to provide a safe space of land will be

cost effective for future generations. The idea of this bill came from observing nongovernmental

conservation organizations. These organizations brought up the need for preservation of wildlife

and how important it is. This is why Fortenberry created the bill to provide funding for an

important issue.

The bill is intended to correct a market failure. That market failure is an unequal

separation of funds in this area between wildlife conservation and recreation. A majority of state

and federal funds goes towards recreation. This is allowing animal populations to decline and

causing them to be listed as endangered. These programs are handled mostly at the state level

which then makes creating the funding more of a challenge. This paper will focus on the

correction of this market failure and what decisions we can have be sustainable.

Literature Review

There is a variety of empirical articles focusing on wildlife conservation economics.

There are three reports that look closely into economic aspects of conservation. The first analysis

focuses on integrating economic costs in conservation planning. The second piece of literature

looks more in depth into the biodiversity in wildlife conservation through a method called smart

growth planning. They look at the values of species richness and put these ideas in to land use

planning. The third article looks at a broader spectrum of incorporating mainstream economics

into wildlife conservation. These writings all discuss on similar ideas and provide textual support

to Fortenberry’s bill.

Arponen et al. (2010) is focused on the economics behind wildlife conservation. It

provides the necessary components to well organized conservation because there is a need to
focus on effective resource allocation for endangered species. Systematic conservation planning

seeks to find maximum benefits for the resources being spent on or minimizing the overall cost

in resources. Arponen et al. (2010) touches on the topic that if we focus too greatly on

economical benefits, we can have a market failure where the locations chosen for conservation

are cheap but not beneficial. Data characteristics show the focus on economic costs versus the

distribution of biodiversity in areas (Conservation Biology, 2010). The variation of economic

cost is much higher than variation in biodiversity when protecting species. Without the economic

impacts and proper funding, there would be little biodiversity to begin with. When the cost to

benefit ratio is at its highest, we can achieve and obtain more with the available resources that

can be afforded with little opportunity cost. A prioritization approach is used where they reflect

on if the cheapest option for land use would be the most beneficial one for biodiversity and

quality of the area. The minimum set coverage and the maximum set coverage are trying to

achieve the highest conservation benefit for the lowest dollar amount (Conservation Biology,

2010). Maximum benefit approaches often have better results with the goals of conservation

practitioners.

Smart growth land use planning is a method of conservation developed by Underwood et

al. (2011). It is where they balance the structural needs of a human population that is rapidly

increasing while also maintaining land for wildlife and the environment. Although, the data

needed to correctly use these objectives for biodiversity is not usually available to land use

planners. In this article, it is discussed through an approach that allows for state and federal

resource management agencies to give the data on biodiversity conservation and for wildlife

conservation. The data shows species that should be of high priority and areas that are high

priority for conservation purposes. In a study conducted by Underwood et al. (2011), they went
to the state of Arizona to conduct their research. To find areas that have high priority for wildlife

conservation, they relied on data showing both threats to biodiversity and species richness

(Landscape & Urban Planning, 2011). To provide a useful tool that allowed for the incorporation

of smart growth planning, they identified areas that had the greatest endangerment threat,

conservation need and species that are often used for recreation activities such as hunting or

fishing. The areas that were weighted in the experiment came back high in species richness and

remained similar throughout the project. The areas that were under the most population stress

and threats were the population centers. To create the final tool, they combined stress and species

richness to obtain their results (Landscape & Urban Planning, 2011). The tool and methods

developed in this article are to help resource management agencies provide land use planners

with the information they need to put wildlife and biodiversity conservation into growth planning

for future generations.

Hall et al. touches on the topic of involving modern economics in the need for wildlife

conservation. The article discusses on areas such as trying to conserve wildlife while dealing

with a rapid growing human population and keeping our natural resources in abundance. Their

goal is to maintain wildlife biodiversity and high population levels while we also need land for

uses such as agriculture and urban expansion. Although, the solutions to these problems become

difficult because mainstream economics are in conflict with wildlife conservation; in their

writings they elaborate on what they think is the problem with today’s conservation methods,

why economics will cause a market failure in this field and how to incorporate economics into

conservation without a market failure. Today’s economic system does not work in a way that

benefits the goals of wildlife conservation. Decisions are solely made upon the most cost to

benefit ratios. Hall et al. wrote on the topic of how they use GDP (gross domestic product) to
measure the welfare of a trade such as this, but this does not give an accurate representation to

the welfare of wildlife. Results of how mainstream economics are put into wildlife conservation

show. People decide how areas of our environment should be saved only based on its dollar

value, which in long term can have negative effects on our ecosystem (Wildlife Society Bulletin,

2000). Hall et al. uses the example of the whooping crane in the article. Millions of dollars are

put into conserving this one species while the benefits are not yet for sure. It is also discussed

how putting economic courses in schools can add to this effect and keeps this cycle going for

future generations.

Discussion