In line with global targets agreed under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the number of marine protected areas (MPAs) is increasing rapidly, yet socio-economic benefits generated by MPAs ...remain difficult to predict and under debate. MPAs often fail to reach their full potential as a consequence of factors such as illegal harvesting, regulations that legally allow detrimental harvesting, or emigration of animals outside boundaries because of continuous habitat or inadequate size of reserve. Here we show that the conservation benefits of 87 MPAs investigated worldwide increase exponentially with the accumulation of five key features: no take, well enforced, old (>10 years), large (>100 km(2)), and isolated by deep water or sand. Using effective MPAs with four or five key features as an unfished standard, comparisons of underwater survey data from effective MPAs with predictions based on survey data from fished coasts indicate that total fish biomass has declined about two-thirds from historical baselines as a result of fishing. Effective MPAs also had twice as many large (>250 mm total length) fish species per transect, five times more large fish biomass, and fourteen times more shark biomass than fished areas. Most (59%) of the MPAs studied had only one or two key features and were not ecologically distinguishable from fished sites. Our results show that global conservation targets based on area alone will not optimize protection of marine biodiversity. More emphasis is needed on better MPA design, durable management and compliance to ensure that MPAs achieve their desired conservation value.
In the era of development, the world is facing severe challenges, and environmental degradation is one of them. However, the globe has tried to introduce several initiatives to fight for ...environmental sustainability, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. The leading role of the proposed goals is to balance development and environmental anxiety. Therefore, to these issues, artificial intelligence and technological advancements play a vital role in the natural resource economy in the digital age. Policy analysts are always looking for solutions and have come up with several viable remedies to this problem. Consequently, information & communication technology (ICT) plays a significant role in sustainability in the digital era. However, under the theme of natural resource sustainability, the effectiveness of ICT has a significant impact on sustainability. Accordingly, the current study investigates the long-run effect of income per capita, tourism, natural resources rents, urbanization, and ICT on environmental sustainability in 36 OECD economies from 2000 to 2018. The current research employs an Augmented Mean Group (AMG) and two-step GMM to investigate the study's objectives. Results show the positive contribution of urbanization, natural resources, and tourism to CO2 emissions, while ICT reduces emissions. Besides, an inverted EKC curve is also validated for selected economies. In addition, the moderate effect of ICT on urbanization, natural resources, and tourism shows a significant decline in CO2 emissions. In light of the findings, this study recommends several crucial measures for environmental sustainability.
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•The data presents a substantial benchmark to summarize sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the era of digitalization.•This study tries to investigate the impact of ICT on CO2 in digitalized era.•Natural resources, URB and tourism raise the carbon emissions.•ICT significantly improves the environmental quality.•Moderate role ICT also significantly contributes to environmental sustainability.
Humanity will soon define a new era for nature-one that seeks to transform decades of underwhelming responses to the global biodiversity crisis. Area-based conservation efforts, which include both ...protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, are likely to extend and diversify. However, persistent shortfalls in ecological representation and management effectiveness diminish the potential role of area-based conservation in stemming biodiversity loss. Here we show how the expansion of protected areas by national governments since 2010 has had limited success in increasing the coverage across different elements of biodiversity (ecoregions, 12,056 threatened species, 'Key Biodiversity Areas' and wilderness areas) and ecosystem services (productive fisheries, and carbon services on land and sea). To be more successful after 2020, area-based conservation must contribute more effectively to meeting global biodiversity goals-ranging from preventing extinctions to retaining the most-intact ecosystems-and must better collaborate with the many Indigenous peoples, community groups and private initiatives that are central to the successful conservation of biodiversity. The long-term success of area-based conservation requires parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to secure adequate financing, plan for climate change and make biodiversity conservation a far stronger part of land, water and sea management policies.
The natural resource curse hypothesis is largely discussed in the empirical literature; however, little is known regarding the financial resource curse hypothesis through the integration of business ...regulations. Also, most empirical research in the literature has used conventional estimation methods. To address these research gaps, this paper examines the financial resource curse hypothesis by scrutinizing the linkage between financial development and natural resources rent from 1984 to 2018. Empirical results validate the financial resource curse hypothesis. Business regulations encourage financial development and neutralize the negative consequences of natural resources on financial development. It implies that conducive business regulations mitigate the financial resource curse in ASEAN countries. This condition may be considered essential for the sustainability of natural resource rent-related advancements in financial development, and appropriate policy recommendations could be put forward.
•Examined financial resource curse hypothesis in ASEAN countries.•Scrutinized the linkage between financial development and natural resources.•The cross-sectional augmented ARDL model is used for analysis purposes.•Results validate the financial resource curse hypothesis.•Business regulations moderate financial development and natural resources linkage.
This article uses the Super-efficiency DEA mothod to calculate the regional ecological efficiency, and selects a Tobit model to verify the impact of green finance and natural resource abundance on ...Chinese regional ecological efficiency. Results as follows: (1) The ecological efficiency of the eastern region is highest, and western region is lowest. Most of the low-efficiency areas are concentrated in the west. Then the ecological efficiency of most areas in Chian has shown an increasing trend. (2) From the perspective of explanatory variables, there is a negative correlation between the overall national green finance and eco-efficiency, which is manifested in a non-linear “U”-shaped characteristic; green finance and eco-efficiency in the central and western regions have negative correlation and “U”-shaped characteristic of non-linear relationship, but the east of China does not passed the significance test. (3) There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the country's overall resource abundance and ecological efficiency. And it is not statistically significant in the eastern region, but it shows a significant inverted U-shaped relationship in the central and west of China. (4) The impact of FDI on China's regional eco-efficiency is generally positive. FDI in the central and western regions has negative correlation with eco-efficiency, but FDI in the eastern region is positively related to eco-efficiency; there are all negatively correlated in whole countey and regions between industrial structure and eco-efficiency; the level of regional economic development is generally positively related to regional eco-efficiency, and in the eastern region's eco-efficiency is positive, and the impact on the other two regions is negative.
•Constructed an ecological efficiency evaluation index system.•Measured the eco-efficiency of different regions.•Verify the impact of green finance on Chinese regional ecological efficiency.•Verify the impact of natural resource abundance on Chinese regional ecological efficiency.•Provide advice for sustainable development.
Conflicts frequently arise over environmental issues such as land use, natural resource management, and laws and regulation. This book is a primer on causes of and solutions to such conflicts. Joshua ...D. Fisher provides a foundational overview of the theory and practice of collaborative approaches to managing environmental disputes.
The provincial panel data from 2005 to 2018 in this paper classifies institutional variables into the degree of market resource allocation, market openness, and property rights diversification. It ...empirically analyzes the relationship between economic growth, natural resources, and institutions quality. The research results show that the “resource curse” proposition is valid at the provincial level in China. The low-quality market resource allocation system and property rights system curbed the potential advantages of natural resources to promote economic development and caused the “resource curse” effect. Similarly, the increase in market openness can ease the “resource curse” effect. Moreover, in the context of the spatial agglomeration of natural resources, there is a negative spatial correlation between economic growth, and the “resource curse” effect is more severe in areas where resources are more abundant. In addition, it is found that natural resource endowments will affect the quality of the system. Under the effect of the causal cycle mechanism, the lower the quality of the system, the more severe “resource curse” effect.
•Multi-dimensional selection institutional quality index.•The “resource curse” proposition is valid at the provincial level in China.•Negative correlation between natural resources and economic growth.•Low institutional quality leads to serious “resource curse".
With increasing concerns over climate change and the global consensus regarding low carbon growth, the transition of resource-based regions has become urgent and challenging. We employ a Slacks-Based ...Measure with windows analysis approach to estimate the carbon emissions efficiency and abatement potential of China's provinces over the period of 2003–2016. A panel Tobit model is further employed to analyze the direct and indirect effects of natural resource abundance on emissions efficiency. We find that: (1) There exists a negative correlation between resource abundance and carbon emissions efficiency. The more abundant the resources, the lower the emissions efficiency. (2) Although emissions efficiency and abatement potential are generally negatively correlated, abatement potential also depends on the scale of the economy. (3) Resource dependence is unfavourable for the rationalization and advancement of the industrial structure, which indirectly affects the carbon emissions efficiency. These findings imply that resource-based regions should make the improvement of emissions efficiency and the exploration of abatement potential as their top priority of actions for a low-carbon transition, and promote the transformation of industrial structure in order to obtain a double dividend in sustainable development and carbon emissions efficiency.
•Carbon emissions efficiency and abatement potential are calculated.•Two perspectives of resource dependence and endowment are considered.•The direct and indirect effects of natural resource abundance are analyzed.•The carbon abatement potential in resource-based regions is still large.•Promoting the transformation of industrial structures can obtain a double dividend.
Over half of the European landscape is under agricultural management and has been for millennia. Many species and ecosystems of conservation concern in Europe depend on agricultural management and ...are showing ongoing declines. Agri‐environment schemes (AES) are designed partly to address this. They are a major source of nature conservation funding within the European Union (EU) and the highest conservation expenditure in Europe. We reviewed the structure of current AES across Europe. Since a 2003 review questioned the overall effectiveness of AES for biodiversity, there has been a plethora of case studies and meta‐analyses examining their effectiveness. Most syntheses demonstrate general increases in farmland biodiversity in response to AES, with the size of the effect depending on the structure and management of the surrounding landscape. This is important in the light of successive EU enlargement and ongoing reforms of AES. We examined the change in effect size over time by merging the data sets of 3 recent meta‐analyses and found that schemes implemented after revision of the EU's agri‐environmental programs in 2007 were not more effective than schemes implemented before revision. Furthermore, schemes aimed at areas out of production (such as field margins and hedgerows) are more effective at enhancing species richness than those aimed at productive areas (such as arable crops or grasslands). Outstanding research questions include whether AES enhance ecosystem services, whether they are more effective in agriculturally marginal areas than in intensively farmed areas, whether they are more or less cost‐effective for farmland biodiversity than protected areas, and how much their effectiveness is influenced by farmer training and advice? The general lesson from the European experience is that AES can be effective for conserving wildlife on farmland, but they are expensive and need to be carefully designed and targeted.
The main goal of this article is to evaluate and analyze the effect of natural resources utilization efficiency on green economic growth in 5 emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and ...South Africa) in the BRICS group. The panel data approach is employed to estimate coefficients by calculating the resource activity coefficient and gathering annual data for 2000–2020. The major results confirm that natural resource utilization efficiency accelerates the green economic growth of BRICS countries. Moreover, the presence of an uni-directional causal linkage from resource utilization efficiency to green economic growth is concluded, meaning that in the short-term, natural resource utilization efficiency can cause green economic growth in BRICS economies. As practical policies, promoting green FDI to increase green technologies transfer, green financing to promote technological innovation, and implementing the principle of 3Rs (Reduce, reuse, recycle) are recommended.
•Natural resource utilization efficiency accelerates green economic growth of BRICS countries.•There is an uni-directional causal linkage running from resource utilization efficiency to green economic growth.•There exists the Halo Pollution Hypothesis (HPH) in BRICS.
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