Conference Agenda

The UK government aims for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with carbon capture via tree planting at the centre of their strategy. Generating 30,000 hectares of new woodland annually from May 2024 will require the continued resilience of forests. Trees have substantial adaptive capacity, harnessing high levels of genetic variation and plasticity to handle environmental pressures. However, with a changing climate and emerging pests and disease threats, trees may not adapt quickly enough to maintain their provision of key ecosystem services. Tools are therefore needed to help managers and policymakers to maintain forest resilience. Forest models that account for tree pest and disease spread have focused on single-host, single-pest combinations, overlooking intraspecific variation in host susceptibility. Further, the role of tree intraspecific genetic variability remains unexplored through a forest economic lens. To address this gap, we develop a bioeconomic model that explores the long-term consequences of various distributions of genetic variability. Specifically, we extend an optimal rotation model to include within-stand intraspecific variation in growth rates and disease response. An epidemiological model with variation in host susceptibility models the feedback loops between genetic variability and disease dynamics. We perform a net present value (NPV) analysis where changes in the genetic composition of the planted forest result in trade-offs between the costs of deployment of novel traits and potential gains from protection against pest and disease threats. We explore the effect of planting decisions on the optimal rotation length and net present value through a sensitivity analysis of the shape and level of variability in the genetic distribution and disease dynamics. The results show that increased genetic variability or disease risk reduced optimal rotation length and NPV. The stand's mean growth rate and resistance level had a non-monotonic relationship with optimal rotation and net present value. Planting slower-growing and more resistant trees can be optimal, depending on disease risk. Our results suggest that the incentive to plant high levels of genetic variability depends on whether the suppressive effects on pest or disease dynamics outweigh the economic losses from harvesting trees at mixed maturity levels. Furthermore, our model highlights the impact of selection on the evolution of genetic diversity. Our study provides a framework to help design appropriate management strategies in the presence of disease, ensuring the long-term viability of forests.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how to design a reserve system from an economic perspective, by taking into account habitat heterogeneity between candidate sites, the opportunity cost of establishing protected areas, and the associated management cost. We also relaxed the assumption that each reserve site should be equally sized. Our analysis shows that it is optimal to designate a larger area as a reserve site for candidate sites with higher conservation priority. Furthermore, when the cross-habitat heterogeneity is high, we demonstrate that it is usually better to increase the number of protected areas, while an opposite case may arise if we take into consideration the management effect. Moreover, we show that, depending on the management efficiency, areas with high conservation priorities do not necessarily require higher management effort. The results imply that the optimal design of the reserve system is determined by the factors of conservation priority, habitat heterogeneity, and management effectiveness.

Do religions codify ecological principles? This paper explores theoretically and empirically the role religious beliefs play in shaping environmental interactions. We study African Traditional Religions (ATR) which place forests within a sacred sphere. We build a model of non-market interactions of the mean-field type where the actions of agents with heterogeneous religious beliefs continuously affect the spatial density of forest cover. The equilibrium extraction policy shows how individual beliefs and their distribution among the population can be a key driver of forest conservation. The model also characterises the role of resource scarcity in both individual and population extraction decisions. We test the model predictions empirically relying on the unique case of Benin, where ATR adherence is freely reported. Using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits the variation in proximity to the Benin-Nigerian border, we find that a 1 standard deviation increase in ATR adherence has a 0.4 standard deviation positive impact on forest cover change. We study the impact of historically belonging to the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey, birthplace of the Vodun religion. Using the original boundaries as a spatial discontinuity, we find positive evidence of Dahomey affiliation on contemporary forest change. Lastly, we compare observed forest cover to counterfactual outcomes by simulating the absence of ATR beliefs across the population.

The Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework and the European Union’s biodiversity strategy have been set to halt biodiversity loss by 2030. Both include ambitious goals to increase the area of protected land and sea to 30% with 10% of strict protection. In forested countries such as in Finland, achieving this goal requires incentivising private forest landowners to conserve their lands. Forest conservation typically relies on voluntary measures and flat-rate policy instruments. Environmental auctions provide a potentially more cost-efficient instrument to allocate public funding for forest conservation. We examine whether a revision of the Finnish METSO programme towards environmental auctioning would facilitate ecologically more efficient and size-wise larger protection than the current flat-rate payment policy. We analyse both the implications on the landowners’ incentives and the outcome for the conservation network and show that when selection criteria favour high-quality sites, like old-growth stands, the auction mechanism outperforms flat-rate payments. The auction also incentivises higher participation of those landowners who do not have strong conservation motives. With pure ecological benefit/cost-ranking of sites, which emphasises the selection of sites with least costs, flat-rate payments lead to larger conservation areas than the auction and thus better results.