Abstract
A challenge for landscape planning is to understand how trade-offs are differently negotiated across privately held parcels and how economic incentives for conservation affect these trade-offs. I used the efficiency frontier framework to explore the trade-offs associated with the nature tourism industry, an economic incentive for conservation, in Monteverde, Costa Rica. I modeled regional changes in forest cover from 1985 through 2009, dates that coincide with the boom in the nature tourism industry. Interview data were used to understand the social context of these forest cover changes and the negotiation of trade-offs from the perspective of individual parcel owners. The results suggest that nature tourism can provide a win-win conservation scenario on individual parcels in which livelihood opportunities coincide with forest regrowth. However, nature tourism has the potential to introduce market feedback that can both complicate livelihood sustainability and hinder multiple ecosystem service provisioning.
Highlights
Landscape planning has moved to the forefront of conservation initiatives under the recognition that patch size and connectivity are essential to ecosystem functioning (Turner et al 2001, Noss 2002)
The results suggest that nature tourism can provide a win-win conservation scenario on individual parcels in which livelihood opportunities coincide with forest regrowth
Understanding nature tourism as a tool for conservation involves challenges: identifying the cultural, economic, and ecological trade-offs associated with nature tourism and evaluating crossparcel feedback sources between land uses
Summary
Landscape planning has moved to the forefront of conservation initiatives under the recognition that patch size and connectivity are essential to ecosystem functioning (Turner et al 2001, Noss 2002). Conservation initiatives have shifted focus from protecting individual reserves to promoting sustainability across mixed-use landscapes, with human well-being being evaluated in conjunction with conservation benefits (Phillips 2003). Government planners concerned with sustainability are charged with implementing policies, often via economic incentives, that promote both ecosystem function and livelihoods. In a landscape dominated by private landowners, the sum of individual decisions responding to economic incentives may not be optimal from a conservation planning perspective. I explore how the nature tourism industry variably impacts parcel owners in the region surrounding and including Monteverde, Costa Rica. I provide a case study for the efficiency frontier framework outlined in this Special Feature
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