Long delays in banning trade in threatened species Frank, Eyal G; Wilcove, David S
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
2019-Feb-15, 2019-02-15, 20190215, Letnik:
363, Številka:
6428
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Scientific knowledge should be applied with more urgency
The harvesting of wild animals and plants for international trade affects thousands of species, and compounds ongoing extinction threats such ...as habitat loss and climate change (
1
–
4
). The loss of overexploited species can result in cascading effects that reduce overall ecosystem functioning (
4
,
5
). The primary international framework for preventing the loss of species due to international wildlife trade is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Given that CITES aims to be as scientifically based as possible (
6
), we analyzed how quickly species that are identified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as being threatened from trade are subsequently protected under CITES. The Red List represents an authoritative body of scientific knowledge regarding extinction risks. We find that in nearly two-thirds of the cases, the CITES process of regulating trade in threatened species lags considerably behind the IUCN identification of species in need of protection from trade. Such delay in the application of scientific knowledge to policy formulation could result in species extinctions. With signatories to CITES set to gather in May to determine which species merit protection, we suggest opportunities to improve this process.
Balancing economic and ecological goals Frank, Eyal G.; Schlenker, Wolfram
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
08/2016, Letnik:
353, Številka:
6300
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Human activities are increasingly degrading ecosystems, resulting in habitat loss and reduced biodiversity. Extinction rates, a widely used metric of biodiversity loss, are estimated to be around ...1000 times as high as those historically experienced on Earth (1); even the most conservative estimate puts current extinction rates at 114 times as high as the background planetary norm (2). Simulations project that, under scenarios of increased economic growth and the accompanying land use change, critical habitat will further degrade and biodiversity will decline (3, 4). Are economic growth and ecosystem conservation incompatible objectives?
Environmental policies often draw criticism due to their potential impacts on labor market outcomes. Previous work has studied sector-specific impacts following air quality regulations, or examined ...overall employment effects of land-use policies. In the case of the protection of the Northern Spotted Owl under the Endangered Species Act in 1990, millions of acres of highly productive federal timberland in the Pacific Northwest and northern California were set aside. Concerns regarding declining employment in the timber industry following the listing are often mentioned as a cautionary tale regarding future listings under the Act. However, disentangling the policy impact from other economic factors affecting employment such as recessions and sector-specific trends is challenging. We use a range of control groups to estimate the impact of the 1990 listing of the Northern Spotted Owl had on labor market outcomes in the Lumber and Wood Products sector. Our set of main results indicate long-run declines in timber industry employment of 13.9% using a regional perspective, 28.1% using a national perspective, and a 9.5% decline in the number of establishments. In the owl habitat range there were 114,600 timber employees in the pre-treatment period; about 1.4% of total employment in those counties. In terms of jobs, the declines represent around 16,000 or 32,000 timber jobs within the Pacific Northwest and northern California. We find heterogeneous effects with areas having larger shares of protected federal timberland experiencing larger declines in employment. Our findings indicate land protection policies may pose significant employment impacts to land-reliant industries.
( 2021) critique our paper (Frank & Wilcove, 2019) in which we report that species assessed by the IUCN Red List as threatened with extinction that are also traded internationally can languish for ...well over a decade until they are protected under CITES (via Appendix I or II), if they are protected at all. ...we argue that having a mechanism that reduces the friction of parsing new scientific data can help in reducing those dangerously long time lags that have led to some species nearly disappearing after just a decade of heavy trading. ...the Red List criteria are based on objectively measured trends in populations sizes or area of habitat; policymakers can use that information to decide how to balance any competing interests between conservation and human activities.
The influence of temperature on diversity and ecosystem functioning is well studied; the converse however, that is, how biodiversity influences temperature, much less so. We manipulated freshwater ...algal species diversity in microbial microcosms to uncover how diversity influenced primary production, which is well documented in biodiversity research. We then also explored how visible‐spectrum absorbance and the local thermal environment responded to biodiversity change. Variations in the local thermal environment, that is, in the temperature of the immediate surroundings of a community, are known to matter not only for the rate of ecosystem processes, but also for persistence of species assemblages and the very relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In our microcosm experiment, we found a significant positive association between algal species richness and primary production, a negative association between primary production and visible‐spectrum absorbance, and a positive association between visible‐spectrum absorbance and the response of the local thermal environment (i.e., change in thermal infrared emittance over a unit time). These findings support an indirect effect of algal diversity on the local thermal environment pointing to a hitherto unrecognized biodiversity effect in which diversity has a predictable influence on local thermal environments.
We investigate the effect of biodiversity on the local thermal properties of the community in a microcosm experiment. We find an hitherto undescribed (indirect) effect of community diversity on local thermal environments that warrants further investigation.
Criteria for CITES species protection—Response Frank, Eyal G.; Wilcove, David S.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
04/2019, Letnik:
364, Številka:
6437
Journal Article
Losses in natural capital and inputs can potentially have large impacts on socioeconomic outcomes of interest. Yet, even with recent evidence demonstrating that extinction rates are increasing, our ...understanding of these linkages is limited. Environmental policy should be informed by the size of such impacts, and the role that economic agents and markets play in causing biodiversity losses. While previous studies have documented multiple channels through which biodiversity losses are coupled with socioeconomic outcomes, we have made limited progress in quantifying well identified estimates of these relationships. This dissertation contributes to our knowledge about the economics of biodiversity losses by providing evidence on three important questions. First, what are the effects of declining natural inputs in the production function? Second, what role do markets play in the extinction of species? Third, what are the indirect costs of conservation policies? Chapter 2 uses a plausibly exogenous shock to bat population levels, to learn about the effects of pesticides on infant health. Chapter 3 uses the sudden change in a species extinction risk to study the effects of information on wildlife trade. Chapter 4 evaluates the impact that the conservation policy for the Northern Spotted Owl had on employment in logging related jobs.
The loss of a keystone species can theoretically lead to large social costs because their complex ecosystem interactions may be important for environmental quality. We quantify these effects for the ...case of vultures in India where they play an important public health role by removing livestock carrion from the environment. The expiration of a patent for a common chemical painkiller led to its increased use in cattle, unexpectedly rendering carcasses fatal to vultures, leading to a catastrophic and near-total population collapse. Using habitat range maps for the affected species, we compare high to low vulture suitability districts before and after the patent for the painkiller expired. We find that, on average, all-cause death rates increased by more than 4% in vulture-suitable districts after the vultures nearly went extinct. We find suggestive evidence that feral dog populations and rabies increased, and that water quality deteriorated in the affected regions. These mechanisms are consistent with the loss of the scavenging function of the vultures. Quantifying the costs of biodiversity losses has critical implications for optimal investments into species conservation and rehabilitation.
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