On the shoulders of some ecologists and conservation biologists rests the responsibility for guarding environmental systems from excessive abuse by humans. To this end, policy makers may be advised to introduce restrictions on behaviour of individuals and firms alike. Needless to say, such proposals often receive a hostile welcome, especially amongst private industries, where it is sometimes felt that ecologists overstate the importance of their case, proposing too stringent regulation too early and thereby causing excessive costs. Early signalling of resource depletion may be a rational (and indeed necessary) response by ecologists to the vagaries of policy making.

Controversies over tropical forest and Kyoto

Slowing deforestation in Amazonia would be a significant contribution to combating global warming and, depending on decisions under the Kyoto Protocol, could provide non-destructive support for rural population in the region (Fearnside 2000a). Crediting avoided deforestation is divisive, both within and among environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governments. Positions of NGOs on inclusion of avoided deforestation in the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are tightly linked to geography: European NGOs oppose inclusion of forests, USA NGOs (other than USA branches or affiliates of international groups) favour inclusion of forests, and Brazilian NGOs (also excepting most branches or affiliates of international NGOs) also favour forests. The probability of chance explaining these views being clustered in Europe, North America and Brazil in this way is miniscule. In other words, these positions are based on something other than the universal concerns about climate change and future generations that predominate in public statements on all sides.

Over thirty years ago a debate began as to whether religion in general, or the Judaeo-Christian faith in particular, were in some sense responsible for the present environmental predicament. Islam, as a major world religion which shares the same Abrahamic roots as the Judaeo-Christian tradition, has been largely absent from this debate. Most conservationists now believe that it is essential that there be comprehensive discussion not only of environmental policies, but also of the ethics underlying environmental protection. This paper looks at the importance of the environment in the main sources of Islamic instruction, namely the Koran and Prophet's Hadiths (teachings). These texts turn out to be on the side of conservation, the emphasis being on respect for creation, the protection of the natural order and avoidance of all wasteful activities which may cause injury to the environment. These positions are contrasted with views expressed by political Islam, which has become influential in a large part of the Muslim world and rejects the conservation measures advocated by Western writers.

Mountains are fragile ecosystems and globally important as water towers of the earth. Sustainable use of mountains depends upon conservation and optimal use of soil and water resources (Ives & Messerli 1989). Despite regional and global efforts to understand the hydrology of the Himalayan region, soil and water conservation (SWC) programmes in this region mainly rely upon engineering measures. For want of cost-effective vegetative (bioengineering) measures (Deoja et al. 1991), and land use and land cover conducive to SWC, the fragile Himalayan watersheds continue to lose soil and water at alarming rates.

A highly polarized debate has emerged in the conservation literature about whether national parks in lesser developed countries should follow a strict protectionist model or find ways to accommodate the development and livelihood needs of local people. A number of social science critiques of national park practice and policy in lesser developed countries have argued that one of the chief problems facing national parks in particular, and biodiversity conservation in general, has been the USA national park model, often termed the ‘Yellowstone model’. This model, in which local and indigenous people and uses have been excluded from parks, has been blamed for harming local people, providing benefits to developed country interests at the expense of local people, high costs of park protection, and ineffective biodiversity conservation (Machlis & Tichnell 1985; West & Brechin 1991; Pimbert & Pretty 1995). Alternatives (henceforth referred to as ‘parks and people’ approaches) seek accommodations between parks and local people, and include community-based conservation, which promotes local involvement and/or control in park decision-making, and integrated conservation and development projects, which attempt to ensure conservation by meeting social and economic needs of local people through agroforestry, forestry, tourism, water projects, extractive reserves, and wildlife utilization.

Whether market-oriented conservation, by which we mean the promotion of markets for the products of intact ecosystems, protects biodiversity, and under what conditions, has been a subject of much research and debate. Our evaluation of three strategies of the market-oriented use of natural resources led us to conclude that, at least for these three strategies, market-oriented mechanisms of conservation are often socially, economically, or ecologically unsustainable, and that proposals for market-oriented conservation should be approached with caution (Crook & Clapp 1998). Shackleton's (2001) critique and extension of the conditions for market-oriented conservation offers many useful insights, although we question some of his interpretations. Herein we examine some of those extensions, and revisit the criteria for successful market-oriented conservation.

Most developed communities, such as Japan, the European Union and the USA, are experiencing a shortage of sites for waste disposal facilities (WDFs) (e.g. Alter 1991; Schall 1992; Chilton 1993; Ikeguchi 1994; Anon. 1994; Berenyi 1996; European Commission 1999). Strong control of local public bodies over site selection decisions and public opposition appear to be the chief causes (Schall 1992; Charles 1993; Capua & Magagni 2000). Recently, in the USA adequate landfill capacity has been ensured, but mainly because of the ease of planning permission for new very large regional landfills (Berenyi 1999). This further illustrates the artificial nature of waste disposal site availability.

Legally recognized Indian reserves of Brazilian Amazonia span over 100 million ha of largely intact forest and are potentially valuable for biodiversity conservation. An important example is provided by the Kayapó territories which span more than 13 million ha in Pará and Mato Grosso, Brazil, and protect a unique and vulnerable Amazonian forest type that is poorly represented in existing nature reserves. The Kayapó of southern Pará have stopped invasion of their lands by the most perverse threats to Amazonian forests, but they have become involved extensively in the sale of illegal logging concessions for the high-value timber species mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla). In 1992, the non-governmental organization Conservation International do Brasil (CI-Brasil) began a conservation and development project with the Kayapó community of A’Ukre with the objective of providing economic alternatives to logging and protecting a population of mahogany trees. This paper demonstrates the conservation benefits that can be achieved by supporting sustainable development of indigenous peoples in the Amazon. Specifically, we: (1) evaluate the ecological importance of the Kayapó reserves from a biodiversity conservation viewpoint, (2) evaluate the conservation success of the CI-Brasil project and test whether the implementation of the conservation alliance between A’Ukre and CI-Brasil satisfies common pool resource principles, and (3) propose a model for expanding the small-scale conservation results achieved by the CI-Brasil project to all Kayapó territories. Several mammals (Tayassu pecari, Pteronura brasiliensis, Priodontes maximus, Panthera onca) and at least one bird species (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) listed as endangered were regularly encountered within 15 km of A’Ukre. Taxa encountered at relatively high densities in the project area included large cracids, lowland tapir, and white-lipped peccary, indicating an ecosystem that is not severely impacted by hunting. Harvest offtakes of mahogany averaged 0.44 stems ha−1 within groves and 0.13 stems ha−1 at the landscape level. We estimate that 85% of the fruiting population of Swietenia macrophylla has been removed in harvested Kayapó territories in Pará. We found Kayapó social organization in A’Ukre to meet criteria of successful common pool resource institutions. The CI-Brasil project resulted in protection of an intact mahogany population in 8000 ha of forest maintained by the community for ecological research purposes and mahogany preservation. Our analysis attributes the success of the conservation alliance with A’Ukre to: (1) direct benefits accruing to all members of the community, (2) fulfilment of criteria for development of common pool resource institutions, and (3) long-term commitment of an external agency. We propose that by implementing these three elements elsewhere, the modest conservation result achieved at A’Ukre could be expanded to include the entire Kayapó nation and thereby contribute to conservation of more than 13 000 000 ha of forest and cerrado in the south-eastern Amazon.

The safe minimum standard (SMS) approach is a collective choice process that prescribes protecting a minimum level of a renewable natural resource unless the social costs of doing so are somehow excessive or intolerably high. Arguments for the SMS are typically invoked in settings involving considerable uncertainty and potentially irreversible losses. However, the SMS is most commonly viewed as existing only on the periphery of thought in traditional environmental and resource economics. The specific objectives are: (1) to define the SMS approach generally and examine theoretical support, particularly for its application in endangered species decision settings; (2) to examine the relationship between an SMS approach and benefit-cost analysis (BCA); (3) to examine the relationship between an SMS approach and non-market valuation; (4) to compare an SMS approach to alternative definitions of sustainability; and (5) to review the general consistency of the SMS approach with the USA's Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, as amended. Recent attention on this pragmatic policy approach has been something far greater than cursory, with advances and detailed discussions on theoretical considerations, philosophical underpinnings and case study applications. While the SMS emerges as a fairly coarse policy instrument, its pragmatic value is seen in complex environmental policy applications, such as endangered species protection.

Soybeans represent a recent and powerful threat to tropical biodiversity in Brazil. Developing effective strategies to contain and minimize the environmental impact of soybean cultivation requires understanding of both the forces that drive the soybean advance and the many ways that soybeans and their associated infrastructure catalyse destructive processes. The present paper presents an up-to-date review of the advance of soybeans in Brazil, its environmental and social costs and implications for development policy. Soybeans are driven by global market forces, making them different from many of the land-use changes that have dominated the scene in Brazil so far, particularly in Amazonia. Soybeans are much more damaging than other crops because they justify massive transportation infrastructure projects that unleash a chain of events leading to destruction of natural habitats over wide areas in addition to what is directly cultivated for soybeans. The capacity of global markets to absorb additional production represents the most likely limit to the spread of soybeans, although Brazil may someday come to see the need for discouraging rather than subsidizing this crop because many of its effects are unfavourable to national interests, including severe concentration of land tenure and income, expulsion of population to Amazonian frontier, and gold-mining, as well as urban areas, and the opportunity cost of substantial drains on government resources. The multiple impacts of soybean expansion on biodiversity and other development considerations have several implications for policy: (1) protected areas need to be created in advance of soybean frontiers, (2) elimination of the many subsidies that speed soybean expansion beyond what would occur otherwise from market forces is to be encouraged, (3) studies to assess the costs of social and environmental impacts associated with soybean expansion are urgently required, and (4) the environmental-impact regulatory system requires strengthening, including mechanisms for commitments not to implant specific infrastructure projects that are judged to have excessive impacts.

Recent studies suggest that deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon could increase sharply in the future as a result of over US$ 40 billion in planned investments in highway paving and major new infrastructure projects in the region. These studies have been challenged by several Brazilian ministries, which assert that recent improvements in environmental laws, enforcement and public attitudes have fundamentally reduced the threat posed to forests by such projects. The notion that hazards to Amazonian forests have declined over the last decade was assessed using available data on deforestation rates from 1978 to 2000. Although the alarmingly high rate of forest loss during 1978–1989 (1.98 million ha yr−1) declined somewhat in 1990–1994 (1.38 million ha yr−1), it rebounded to a high level in the period 1995–2000 (1.90 million ha yr−1). Moreover, correlation and regression analyses reveal that both absolute and per caput rates of forest loss accelerated significantly over the last decade. These trends fail to support the assertion that deforestation pressure in Amazonian forests has been brought under control. Poor enforcement of existing environmental laws, rapidly expanding logging and mining industries, increasing population pressure and other challenges are greatly hindering efforts to limit the environmental impacts of development activities in Brazilian Amazonia.

In the north-western Peruvian Amazon, a new road has recently been constructed to link the city of Iquitos with the town of Nauta. The road crosses lands that are remarkably heterogeneous in terms of ecological conditions, comprising distinctive soil types from extremely poor to relatively fertile. Although this reality contributes to the land use potential and human carrying capacity of each place, deforestation of road margins appears equally intensive on all types of land. In the mid-1990s, two dead-end roads starting from both urban centres were characterized by distinctive zones of resource exploitation, with a road-free section of primary forest in between. A few years later, the separate road ends were linked by a dirt road that served only occasional traffic, but introduced significant new settlement. Various developmental trends evidence incoherent resource management and momentary public support in the region. By promoting diverse economic activities that reflect environmental conditions in the initial land use planning and land allocation, most sections along this road could be considered economically valuable for purposes such as sustainable forestry, tourism, agroforestry and, in suitable sites, intensive agriculture. To promote the more sustainable uses, thorough environmental legislation, administrative guidelines and follow-up based on an implicit mechanism of learning from previous experiences should be implemented. At the local level, there are some important initiatives to support such development, including ecological and economic zoning. However, these measures might be too late to prevent the destructive practices so common in many parts of Amazonia.

The large number of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Caribbean (over 100) gives a misleading impression of the amount of protection the reefs and other marine resources in this region are receiving. This review synthesizes information on marine resources in two of the first MPAs established in the USA, namely Virgin Islands National Park (1962) and Buck Island Reef National Monument (1961), and provides compelling evidence that greater protection is needed, based on data from some of the longest running research projects on coral reefs, reef fish assemblages, and seagrass beds for the Caribbean. Most of the stresses affecting marine resources throughout the Caribbean (e.g. damage from boats, hurricanes and coral diseases) are also causing deterioration in these MPAs. Living coral cover has decreased and macroalgal cover has increased. Seagrass densities have decreased because of storms and anchor damage. Intensive fishing in the US Virgin Islands has caused loss of spawning aggregations and decreases in mean fish size and abundance. Groupers and snappers are far less abundant and herbivorous fishes comprise a greater proportion of samples than in the 1960s. Effects of intensive fishing are evident even within MPA boundaries. Although only traditional fishing with traps of ‘conventional design’ is allowed, commercial trap fishing is occurring. Visual samples of fishes inside and outside Virgin Islands National Park showed no significant differences in number of species, biomass, or mean size of fishes. Similarly, the number of fishes per trap was statistically similar inside and outside park waters. These MPAs have not been effective because an unprecedented combination of natural and human factors is assaulting the resources, some of the greatest damage is from stresses outside the control of park managers (e.g. hurricanes), and enforcement of the few regulations has been limited. Fully functioning MPAs which prohibit fishing and other extractive uses (e.g. no-take marine reserves) could reverse some of the degradation, allowing replenishment of the fishery resources and recovery of benthic habitats.

Dry forests are among the most threatened ecosystems and have been extensively converted into grasslands, secondary forest, savanna or agricultural land. Knowledge of seed germination and seedling establishment is required for the success of efforts on restoration of these forests. This review focuses on the ecological requirements at seed and seedling stages, and collates the current knowledge of seed viability, dormancy, germination pattern and seedling behaviour of dry tropical tree species. The spatio-temporal variations within the tropical dry forest biome in soil moisture, light, temperature, nutrients and intensity of predation, significantly affect the seed and seedling traits of component species. The majority of dry tropical species possess orthodox seeds which are characterized by dormancy, while a few have recalcitrant seeds which possess little or no dormancy. Seed coat dormancy, which can be overcome by mechanical or acid scarification or sometimes by transit through animal guts, is most prevalent in the dry tropical forest species. Persistent species dominating the undisturbed portions of the forest have bigger seeds compared to those that mostly occur in disturbed regions and require shade for the survival of their seedlings. Shade demand is associated with drought endurance, and may be absolute in species such as Guettarda parviflora and Coccoloba microstachya, or facultative as in Plumeria alba and Bursera simaruba. The fluctuation in temperature significantly affects seed germination in several species of dry Afromontane forest trees of Ethiopia. Seedling mortality is primarily a function of moisture stress during the dry period. Adaptive responses of seedlings to drought stress include increased chlorophyll content, for example in Acacia catechu, and root biomass, as in several dry forest species (for example Drypetes parvifolia, Teclia verdoornia) of Ghana. Mulching, application of fertilizers, interplanting of leguminous species and mycorrhizal inoculation are useful tools for promoting seedling establishment in nutrient-poor dry tropical soils. Periodic forest fires, and predation affect recruitment and seedling development according to their intensity. Many species experiencing frequent fires have evolved thick seed coats, produce fire-hardy seedlings, or escape the effect by temporal separation of seed dispersal and fire events. Predation may result in abortion of fruits or may enhance germination and recruitment by scarification and dispersal, as in most species of the Guanacaste dry forest. Exposure to elevated CO2 has increased relative growth rate, total leaf area and water use efficiency in most of the dry tropical seedlings tested, but the magnitude of the effect has varied markedly among species. Due to the availability of a large source of energy, large seeds show higher germination percentage, greater seedling survival and increased growth. Seeds originating from different provenances exhibit differences in germination and seedling growth (for example Prosopis cineraria, Albizia lebbeck, Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Acacia mangium), efficiency of nodulation (for example Acacia nilotica, A. auriculiformis), and stress resistance (for example Populus deltoides, Dalbergia sissoo). The review points out the need for coordinated, long-term, field-based studies for identification of multiple cues and niches for germination, on seed and seedling dynamics in response to fire, and on within-species genetic variability for selection of suitable provenances. Field-based studies at species and community levels are also needed to permit manipulations of biotic components to augment the recruitment of desired species and to suppress that of undesirable species.

Protected area visitation is an important component of ecotourism, and as such, must be sustainable. However, protected area visitation may degrade natural resources, particularly in areas of concentrated visitor activities like trails and recreation sites. This is an important concern in ecotourism destinations such as Belize and Costa Rica, because they actively promote ecotourism and emphasize the pristine qualities of their natural resources. Research on visitor impacts to protected areas has many potential applications in protected area management, though it has not been widely applied in Central and South America. This study targeted this deficiency through manager interviews and evaluations of alternative impact assessment procedures at eight protected areas in Belize and Costa Rica. Impact assessment procedures included qualitative condition class systems, ratings systems, and measurement-based systems applied to trails and recreation sites. The resulting data characterize manager perceptions of impact problems, document trail and recreation site impacts, and provide examples of inexpensive, efficient and effective rapid impact assessment procedures. Interview subjects reported a variety of impacts affecting trails, recreation sites, wildlife, water, attraction features and other resources. Standardized assessment procedures were developed and applied to record trail and recreation site impacts. Impacts affecting the study areas included trail proliferation, erosion and widening, muddiness on trails, vegetation cover loss, soil and root exposure, and tree damage on recreation sites. The findings also illustrate the types of assessment data yielded by several alternative methods and demonstrate their utility to protected area managers. The need for additional rapid assessment procedures for wildlife, water, attraction feature and other resource impacts was also identified.

Despite scientific concern about Amazon deforestation and the impacts of the Amazon gold rush, few researchers have assessed the long-term impacts of small-scale gold mining on forest cover. This study estimates deforestation from gold mining and analyses the regeneration of abandoned mining areas in the Suriname Amazon. Fieldwork in December 1998 included observations and ecological measurements, as well as qualitative interviews with local miners about mining history and technology. Vegetation cover of abandoned mining sites of different ages was compared with that in old-growth forest. By present estimates, gold miners clear 48–96 km2 of old-growth forest in Suriname annually. Based on different assumptions about changes in technology and the amount of mining that takes place on previously mined sites, cumulative deforestation is expected to reach 750–2280 km2 by 2010. Furthermore, the analysis of abandoned mining sites suggests that forest recovery following mining is slow and qualitatively inferior compared to regeneration following other land uses. Unlike areas in nearby old-growth forest, large parts of mined areas remain bare ground, grass, and standing water. The area deforested by mining may seem relatively small, but given the slow forest recovery and the concentration of mining in selected areas, small-scale gold mining is expected to reduce local forest cover and ecosystem services in regions where mining takes place.

The distributions of forest and deforestation throughout the tropics are poorly known despite their importance to regional biodiversity and global climate and biodiversity. Deforestation estimates based on surveys or sampling have large errors, and high-resolution, wall-to-wall mapping of tropical forests is necessary to assess the impacts of fragmentation. Landsat satellite images from the mid-1980s and early 1990s were thus used to map closed-canopy tropical forest extent and anthropogenic deforestation in an approximately 700 000 km2 area of Amazonian Bolivia with precipitation >1000 mm yr−1. Total potential forest cover extent, including tropical deciduous forest, was 448 700 km2, while the area of natural non-forest formations was 245 100 km2. The area deforested was 15 500 km2 in the mid-1980s and 24 700 km2 by the early 1990s. The rate of tropical deforestation in the forest zone of Bolivia with >1000 mm yr−1 precipitation below 1500 m elevation and north of 19° S, was 1529 km2 yr−1 from 1985–1986 to 1992–1994. Our estimates of deforestation are significantly lower than those reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). We document a spatially-concentrated ‘deforestation zone’ in Santa Cruz where >60% of the Bolivian deforestation has occurred. These results indicate that the rate of deforestation in Bolivia has been rapid despite a relatively small human population, and, as in Brazil, clearance has concentrated in the more deciduous forests.

A global wood shortage generating real inflation-adjusted price increases for wood has been a long and widely-held expectation. This paper assesses the validity of this view by examining global trends in wood and wood-products consumption, developing a model to explain movements in wood prices and testing it empirically. No evidence was found of increasing real prices for wood over the long-term, indicating that there is no looming global wood shortage. A global wood shortage is not predicted because technology is increasing resource productivity, enabling wood products to be made using less wood, and also increasing wood supply. It is superficial to interpret this to mean that there is little to worry about from a native forest biodiversity perspective. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that real prices for wood are likely to continue to fall. This will discourage commercially-driven investment in plantation establishment on existing agricultural land. But industrial pressure will continue for a wood resource that is attractive in cost and quality terms, increasing the risk of biodiversity loss through intensification of native forest management and clearing of native forests for plantations. It is prudent to consider approaches that encourage plantation investment on existing agriculture land using the price mechanism. Currently, much private sector plantation investment is based on price expectations derived from an incorrect view of an imminent global wood shortage. Withdrawing old-growth forests from commodity wood supply is likely to increase wood prices in line with widely-held, though apparently false, expectations and also deliver an absolute best ecological outcome. As increasing volumes of wood become available from maturing plantations, government policy changes will be required to ensure that levels of logging in native forests actually decline rather than new markets being found for native forest wood. Despite its strategic commercial importance, little is known about the potential of the existing global plantation estate to supply wood. Addressing this information gap is a timely task that would enhance industry policy and clarify future plantation investment requirements.

Increases in spiny lobster size and abundance have been observed within some marine protected areas (MPAs). To date, the potential economic benefits of these changes have been assumed to derive from the effects of emigration of adult lobster to adjacent fishing grounds and/or increased larval export to downstream nurseries that sustain fisheries. According to economic theory, these effects may provide consumptive (extractive) economic value to the fishery but are only part of the total economic value. Non-extractive economic value resulting from viewing wildlife may also have an important impact on the overall economic viability of some MPAs. This research examined scuba diver preferences in the Turks and Caicos Islands using a paired comparison conjoint survey and assessed the influence that spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) presence had on market share for dive charter packages of varying environmental quality and price. Market simulations showed significant increases in market share for dives where spiny lobsters were present, implying, for the first time, that spiny lobsters have non-extractive economic value. This non-extractive value of spiny lobster may have an important impact on the economic viability of some MPAs, especially those in regions like the Turks and Caicos Islands that are highly dependent on marine-oriented nature tourism.

As emissions trading regimes become increasingly popular mechanisms for environmental pollution control around the world, environmentalists are asking whether market-based programmes meet their promise of both efficient and equitable pollution reductions. The emissions trading regime of the USA's Acid Rain Programme (ARP) is investigated in order to determine whether the programme has concentrated sulphur dioxide (SO2) pollution disproportionately for the poor and people of colour. While the USA emissions trading regime has been hailed as a success for cost-efficiently reducing pollution in the aggregate, critics contend that the programme is insufficiently attentive to the localized concentrations of harmful SO2 that trading can create. Further, advocates of environmental justice question whether emissions trading might exacerbate the disproportionate pollution burdens already facing the poor and people of colour. Stack emissions and pollution allowance holdings for all 110 power plants participating in Phase I of the trading programme are correlated with income and racial demographic characteristics of the people living around each plant to determine whether the ARP might raise distributive environmental justice concerns. Using USA Census data at the tract level, income and racial demographics around plants that increased and decreased their emissions as well as plants that were net purchasers and sellers of pollution allowances over the first three years of the programme are compared. For the first few years of the ARP, the emissions trading regime does not appear to have been concentrating SO2 pollution disproportionately for the poor and racial minority populations.