TY - JOUR
T1 - Harnessing visitors' enthusiasm for national parks to fund cooperative large-landscape conservation
AU - Middleton, Arthur D.
AU - Stoellinger, Temple
AU - Karandikar, Harshad
AU - Leonard, Bryan
AU - Doremus, Holly
AU - Kremen, Claire
N1 - Funding Information:
The following individuals shared useful information: Jessica Welch, Andrew DuMoulin, and Ernest Cook of the Trust for Public Land; Gary Burnett and JoAnn Grant of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative; Kara Maplethorpe of the Centennial Valley Association; and Steve Kilpatrick of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. We benefited from discussions with Albert Sommers, Lee Livingston, and Brian Yablonski; and comments from Robert Bonnie, Chris Colligan, Roger Coupal, Dave Freudenthal, and Bob Keiter. The map was created by Alethea Steingisser, Julia Olson, Justin Menke, and James Meacham of the InfoGraphics Lab at the University of Oregon using animal movement data shared by state and federal agencies. This research was supported by the National Geographic Society (Grant WW‐100C‐17), the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Knobloch Family Foundation, and the George B. Storer Foundation.
Funding Information:
The following individuals shared useful information: Jessica Welch, Andrew DuMoulin, and Ernest Cook of the Trust for Public Land; Gary Burnett and JoAnn Grant of the Heart of the Rockies Initiative; Kara Maplethorpe of the Centennial Valley Association; and Steve Kilpatrick of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. We benefited from discussions with Albert Sommers, Lee Livingston, and Brian Yablonski; and comments from Robert Bonnie, Chris Colligan, Roger Coupal, Dave Freudenthal, and Bob Keiter. The map was created by Alethea Steingisser, Julia Olson, Justin Menke, and James Meacham of the InfoGraphics Lab at the University of Oregon using animal movement data shared by state and federal agencies. This research was supported by the National Geographic Society (Grant WW-100C-17), the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Knobloch Family Foundation, and the George B. Storer Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Conservation Science and Practice published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology
PY - 2021/2
Y1 - 2021/2
N2 - Spillover impacts pose challenges for the management of protected areas (PAs). The issue of external threats encroaching on PAs has long been recognized, but a corollary—that PA conservation can increase costs borne by neighboring governments or landowners—is less well appreciated. In some contexts, basic principles of fairness and cooperation suggest that PA users should help pay these costs. Several countries have developed mechanisms for distributing the costs of spillover impacts to PA users, but not the United States. Here, we investigate whether and how US park visitors could help address one type of spillover, the need for wildlife conservation efforts beyond park boundaries, using a case study of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). We examine a “conservation fee” recently proposed in the Wyoming legislature, along with tax-based alternatives. After exploring some costs of wildlife conservation in GYE, we estimate that a fee of up to $10 per vehicle could generate up to $13 million annually, and tax-based approaches considerably more. We consider legal, political, and governance challenges, and ways to mitigate them. The GYE could serve as a demonstration site for visitor funding of cooperative, large-landscape conservation, for potential future expansion in the US and beyond.
AB - Spillover impacts pose challenges for the management of protected areas (PAs). The issue of external threats encroaching on PAs has long been recognized, but a corollary—that PA conservation can increase costs borne by neighboring governments or landowners—is less well appreciated. In some contexts, basic principles of fairness and cooperation suggest that PA users should help pay these costs. Several countries have developed mechanisms for distributing the costs of spillover impacts to PA users, but not the United States. Here, we investigate whether and how US park visitors could help address one type of spillover, the need for wildlife conservation efforts beyond park boundaries, using a case study of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). We examine a “conservation fee” recently proposed in the Wyoming legislature, along with tax-based alternatives. After exploring some costs of wildlife conservation in GYE, we estimate that a fee of up to $10 per vehicle could generate up to $13 million annually, and tax-based approaches considerably more. We consider legal, political, and governance challenges, and ways to mitigate them. The GYE could serve as a demonstration site for visitor funding of cooperative, large-landscape conservation, for potential future expansion in the US and beyond.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122059048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85122059048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/csp2.335
DO - 10.1111/csp2.335
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122059048
SN - 2578-4854
VL - 3
JO - Conservation Science and Practice
JF - Conservation Science and Practice
IS - 2
M1 - e335
ER -