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Opportunity costs of conservation in a biodiversity hotspot: the case of southern Bahia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2005

KENNETH M. CHOMITZ ,
KEITH ALGER ,
TIMOTHY S. THOMAS ,
HELOISA ORLANDO  and
PAULO VILA NOVA
KENNETH M. CHOMITZ
Affiliation:
Development Research Group, World Bank, Washington, DC, USA. E-mail: kchomitz@worldbank.org
KEITH ALGER
Affiliation:
Conservation International, NW Suite 600, Washington, DC and Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil.
TIMOTHY S. THOMAS
Affiliation:
World Bank, Washington, DC.
HELOISA ORLANDO
Affiliation:
IESB, Rua Major Homem del Rey, Cidade Nova, Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil.
PAULO VILA NOVA
Affiliation:
Instituto de Estudos Sócio Ambientais do Sul da Bahia Rua Major Homem del Rey, Cidade Nova, Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil.
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Abstract

Biodiversity ‘hotspot’ areas, which are characterized by concentrations of endemic species and severe anthropogenic loss of natural habitat, might be thought to present steep opportunity costs for maintaining forest cover against pressures of agricultural conversion. We examine this proposition for the southern part of the state of Bahia, a center of endemism within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, which has less than 8 per cent of its original primary forest cover remaining. Using data from a survey of property values, we relate land price to land characteristics, including land cover, soil quality, slope, climate, and road proximity. We find median land values of R$725/hectare, or about US$400/hectare at recently prevailing exchange rates. Remaining land under forest has a market value 70 per cent below comparable cleared land.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , June 2005 , pp. 293 - 312
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The property survey was carried out by IESB under a grant from PROBlO, which supported also the interpretation of the land cover data by E.C. Landau and colleagues. The World Bank's Research Support Board supported the data analysis reported here, compilation of the vegetation maps by W. Wayt Thomas and André M.de Carvalho, and (with supplementary funding from the Rain Forest Trust) supported digitization of the land capabilities data. We are grateful to IBGE for making those data available and to David Stoms at the Institute for Computational Earth Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, for undertaking digitization. Conservation International digitized the vegetation maps and contributed to data integration and analysis. Preparation of the paper was supported by the Norwegian Trust Fund for the World Development Report 2003, for which an earlier version served as a background paper. The findings and interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, its Executive Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. We are grateful for comments and assistance from Gustavo Fonseca, John Musinsky, Rui Rocha, David Stoms, and Wayt Thomas. We are grateful to Vinicius Amorim for fieldwork performed for the study and to Miroslav Honzak for help with data-processing.