A1 Journal article (refereed)
Quantifying trade-offs between ecological gains, economic costs, and landowners’ preferences in boreal mire protection (2021)

Nieminen, E., Kareksela, S., Halme, P., & Kotiaho, J. S. (2021). Quantifying trade-offs between ecological gains, economic costs, and landowners’ preferences in boreal mire protection. Ambio, 50(10), 1841-1850. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01530-0

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Nieminen, Eini; Kareksela, Santtu; Halme, Panu; Kotiaho, Janne Sakari

Journal or series: Ambio

ISSN: 0044-7447

eISSN: 1654-7209

Publication year: 2021

Publication date: 06/04/2021

Volume: 50

Issue number: 10

Pages range: 1841-1850

Publisher: Springer

Publication country: Netherlands

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-021-01530-0

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/75031

Abstract

Private land often encompasses biodiversity features of high conservation value, but its protection is not straightforward. Commonly, landowners’ perspectives are rightfully allowed to influence conservation actions. This unlikely comes without consequences on biodiversity or other aspects such as economic considerations, but these consequences are rarely quantitatively considered in decision-making. In the context of boreal mire protection in Finland, we report how acknowledging landowners’ resistance to protection changes the combination of mires selected to conservation compared to ignoring landowners’ opinions. Using spatial prioritization, we quantify trade-offs arising between the amount of landowners’ resistance, protected biodiversity, and financial costs in different conservation scenarios. Results show that the trade-offs cannot be fully avoided. Nevertheless, we show that the systematic examination of the trade-offs opens up options to alleviate them. This can promote the evaluation of different conservation policy outcomes, enabling better-informed conservation decisions and more effective and socially sustainable allocation of conservation resources.

Keywords: nature conservation; mire conservation; protected areas; land ownership; private land; environmental policy; economic effects; social sustainability

Free keywords: conservation policy; private land protection; systematic conservation planning; trade-off analysis; voluntary conservation; zonation

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2021

JUFO rating: 1