Economic analysis of threatened species conservation: The case of woodland caribou and oilsands development in Alberta, Canada.

Tradeoffs between cost and recovery targets for boreal caribou herds, threatened species in Alberta, Canada, are examined using a dynamic cost minimization model. Unlike most approaches used for minimizing costs of achieving threatened species targets, we incorporate opportunity costs of surface (forests) and subsurface resources (energy) as well as direct costs of conservation (habitat restoration and direct predator control), into a forward looking model of species protection. Opportunity costs of conservation over time are minimized with an explicit target date for meeting species recovery targets; defined as the number of self-sustaining caribou herds, which requires that both habitat and population targets are met by a set date. The model was run under various scenarios including three species recovery criteria, two oil and gas price regimes, and targets for the number of herds to recover from 1 to 12. The derived cost curve follows a typical pattern as costs of recovery per herd increase as the number of herds targeted for recovery increases. The results also show that the opportunity costs for direct predator control are small compared to habitat restoration and protection costs. However, direct predator control is essential for meeting caribou population targets and reducing the risk of extirpation while habitat is recovered over time.

The impact of chronic wasting disease and its management on hunter perceptions, opinions, and behaviors in Alberta, Canada.

The goal of this analysis was to identify changes in hunting behavior, satisfaction, and perceptions of risk in the presence of chronic wasting disease (CWD). Hunters completed an Internet survey containing direct questions regarding the impacts of CWD and gathering information about real and hypothetical hunting trips. Overall, hunters were satisfied with CWD management, and although certain behaviors were altered, the perceived risk by hunters did not seem to be high. A travel cost model was used to determine whether differences in trip frequencies might be observed in response to CWD. The largest variation in trips was between urban and rural hunters, with urban hunters being less averse to traveling but more averse to CWD and the management program of extra tags.

Achieving conservation when opportunity costs are high: optimizing reserve design in Alberta's oil sands region.

Recent studies have shown that conservation gains can be achieved when the spatial distributions of biological benefits and economic costs are incorporated in the conservation planning process. Using Alberta, Canada, as a case study we apply these techniques in the context of coarse-filter reserve design. Because targets for ecosystem representation and other coarse-filter design elements are difficult to define objectively we use a trade-off analysis to systematically explore the relationship between conservation targets and economic opportunity costs. We use the Marxan conservation planning software to generate reserve designs at each level of conservation target to ensure that our quantification of conservation and economic outcomes represents the optimal allocation of resources in each case. Opportunity cost is most affected by the ecological representation target and this relationship is nonlinear. Although petroleum resources are present throughout most of Alberta, and include highly valuable oil sands deposits, our analysis indicates that over 30% of public lands could be protected while maintaining access to more than 97% of the value of the region's resources. Our case study demonstrates that optimal resource allocation can be usefully employed to support strategic decision making in the context of land-use planning, even when conservation targets are not well defined.

Differences in water consumption choices in Canada: the role of socio-demographics, experiences, and perceptions of health risks.

In 2000 and 2001 Canadians were shocked by water contamination events that took place in two provinces. In 2004 we undertook an internet-based survey across Canada that asked respondents to identify in percentage terms their total drinking water consumption according to one of three sources: tap water, bottled water, and home-filtered water (either some type of container or an in-tap filter device). In this paper we investigate the factors that influence these choices and whether choosing to either filter or purchase water is linked to perceptions of health concerns with respect to tap water. A series of one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests suggest that the presence of children in a household and self-reported concern that tap water causes health problems lead to significantly greater consumption of bottled water or filtered water and significantly less tap water consumption. In order to examine these choices in a multivariate framework, we estimate a multinomial logit model. Factors yielding higher probabilities of a respondent being primarily a bottled water drinker (relative to the choice of tap water) include: higher income, unpleasant taste experiences with tap water, non-French-speaking, and being a male with children in one's household. Similar factors yield higher probabilities of a respondent being primarily a filtered tap water drinker. An important finding is that two key variables linking a person's health perceptions regarding tap water quality are significant factors leading to the choice of either filtered tap water or bottled water over tap water. They are: a variable showing the degree of health concerns a respondent has with respect to tap water and a second variable indicating whether the respondent believes bottled water is safer than tap water.

Socioeconomic determinants of health- and food safety-related risk perceptions.

Individual and societal perceptions of food-related health risks are multidimensional and complex. Social, political, psychological, and economic factors interact with technological factors and affect perceptions in complex ways. Previous research found that the significant determinants of risk perceptions include socioeconomic and behavioral variables. Most of these past results are based on two-way comparisons and factor analysis. The objective of this study was to analyze the significance of socioeconomic determinants of risk perceptions concerning health and food safety. A multivariate approach was used and the results were compared with earlier bivariate results to determine which socioeconomic predictors were robust across methods. There were two major findings in this study. The first was that the results in the multivariate models were generally consistent with earlier bivariate analysis. That is, variables such as household income, number of children, gender, age, and voting preferences were strong predictors of an individual's risk perceptions. The second result was that the gender of the respondent was the only variable found to be robust across all three classes of health and food safety issues across two time periods.