Economic impact of nature-based tourism.

Protected areas (PAs) can help address biodiversity loss by promoting conservation while fostering economic development through sustainable tourism. Nature-based tourism can generate economic benefits for communities in and around PAs; however, its impacts do not lend themselves to conventional impact evaluation tools. We utilize a Monte Carlo simulation approach with econometric estimations using microdata to estimate the full economic impact of nature-based tourism on the economies surrounding three terrestrial and two marine PAs. Simulations suggest that nature-based tourism creates significant economic benefits for communities around PAs, including the poorest households, and many of these benefits are indirect, via income and production spillovers. An additional tourist increases annual real income in communities near the PAs by US$169-$2,400, significantly more than the average tourist's expenditure. Conversely, lost tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic costs of human-wildlife conflict have disproportionately large negative impacts on local incomes.

Viewpoint: The future of work in agri-food.

As countries develop, agriculture's role as domestic employer declines. But the broader agri-food system also expands, and the scope for agriculture-related job creation shifts beyond the farm. Historically, technological revolutions have shaped, and have been shaped by, these dynamics. Today, a digital revolution is taking hold. In this process of structural transformation, societies evolve from having a surplus to a shortage of domestic farm labor, typically met by foreign agricultural wage workers. Yet anti-immigration sentiments are flying high in migrant-destination countries, and agricultural trade may be similarly challenged. Robots in the fields and packing plants offer an alternative to a diminishing labor supply. COVID-19 will reinforce trends of digitization and anti-globalization (including in food trade), while slowing economic growth and structural transformation. In the world's poorest countries, particularly in Africa, labor productivity in agriculture remains at historically low levels. So, what role can the agri-food system play as a source of employment in the future? This viewpoint elaborates on these trends and reviews several policy options, including inclusive value chain development, better immigration policies, social insurance schemes, and ramp up in agricultural education and extension.

Evaluating sustainable development policies in rural coastal economies.

Sustainable development (SD) policies targeting marine economic sectors, designed to alleviate poverty and conserve marine ecosystems, have proliferated in recent years. Many developing countries are providing poor fishing households with new fishing boats (fishing capital) that can be used further offshore as a means to improve incomes and relieve fishing pressure on nearshore fish stocks. These kinds of policies are a marine variant of traditional SD policies focused on agriculture. Here, we evaluate ex ante economic and environmental impacts of provisions of fishing and agricultural capital, with and without enforcement of fishing regulations that prohibit the use of larger vessels in nearshore habitats. Combining methods from development economics, natural resource economics, and marine ecology, we use a unique dataset and modeling framework to account for linkages between households, business sectors, markets, and local fish stocks. We show that the policies investing capital in local marine fisheries or agricultural sectors achieve income gains for targeted households, but knock-on effects lead to increased harvest of nearshore fish, making them unlikely to achieve conservation objectives in rural coastal economies. However, pairing an agriculture stimulus with increasing enforcement of existing fisheries' regulations may lead to a win-win situation. While marine-based policies could be an important tool to achieve two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (alleviate poverty and protect vulnerable marine resources), their success is by no means assured and requires consideration of land and marine socioeconomic linkages inherent in rural economies.

Market-driven bioeconomic general equilibrium impacts of tourism on resource-dependent local economies: A case from the western Philippines.

Tourism is frequently promoted as a strategy for sustainable economic development in developing countries. However, the preferred methodology for empirically assessing tourism's economic impacts on local economies, applied computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling, does not account for how tourism affects local natural resource stocks upon which many households depend. We develop a bioeconomic local CGE model to show how market-driven impacts of tourism expansion affect natural resource availability over time. We then show how changes in resource availability affect local incomes of different socioeconomic groups. We parameterize our model with household, business, and tourist survey data from a municipality in the Philippines. We find that tourism expansion increases local real incomes in the short run, but this causes a decline in a local open-access natural resource that erodes real incomes over time, particularly for households engaged in the natural resource sector. Different market integration contexts, as expressed through trade linkages, can mitigate natural resource decline, but this reduces the overall local economic benefit of tourism.

An integrated bioeconomic local economy-wide assessment of the environmental impacts of poverty programs.

A new generation of poverty programs around the globe provides cash payments to poor and vulnerable households. Studies show that these social cash transfer programs create income and welfare benefits for poor households and the local economies where they live. However, this may come at the cost of damaging local environments if cash payments stimulate food production that conflicts with natural resource conservation. Evaluations of the economic impacts of poverty programs do not account for the welfare consequences of environmental impacts, which are potentially large for poor communities closely tied to natural resources. We use an ex-ante policy simulation tool, a bioeconomic local computable general equilibrium model parameterized with microsurvey data, to analyze the expected welfare consequences of environmental degradation caused by a cash transfer program. For a Philippine fishing community that is a net importer of fish, we show that a government cash transfer program initially increases real incomes for all households. However, increased demand for fish leads to a decline in the local fish stock that reduces program benefits. Household groups experience declines in real income benefits of 2-63%, with fishing households suffering the largest declines. Impacts on local fish stocks depend on the extent to which markets link fishing communities to outside regions through trade. Greater market integration can mitigate the fish stock decline, but this reduces the local income benefits of cash transfers.

Economic impact of refugees.

In 2015, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees accommodated over 15 million refugees, mostly in refugee camps in developing countries. The World Food Program provided these refugees with food aid, in cash or in kind. Refugees' impacts on host countries are controversial and little understood. This unique study analyzes the economic impacts of refugees on host-country economies within a 10-km radius of three Congolese refugee camps in Rwanda. Simulations using Monte Carlo methods reveal that cash aid to refugees creates significant positive income spillovers to host-country businesses and households. An additional adult refugee receiving cash aid increases annual real income in the local economy by $205 to $253, significantly more than the $120-$126 in aid each refugee receives. Trade between the local economy and the rest of Rwanda increases by $49 to $55. The impacts are lower for in-kind food aid, a finding relevant to development aid generally.

Genetic erosion in maize's center of origin.

Crop genetic diversity is an indispensable resource for farmers and professional breeders responding to changing climate, pests, and diseases. Anecdotal appraisals in centers of crop origin have suggested serious threats to this diversity for over half a century. However, a nationwide inventory recently found all maize races previously described for Mexico, including some formerly considered nearly extinct. A flurry of social studies seems to confirm that farmers maintain considerable diversity. Here, we compare estimates of maize diversity from case studies over the past 15 y with nationally and regionally representative matched longitudinal data from farmers across rural Mexico. Our findings reveal an increasing bias in inferences based on case study results and widespread loss of diversity. Cross-sectional, case study data suggest that farm-level richness has increased by 0.04 y(-1) nationwide; however, direct estimates using matched longitudinal data reveal that richness dropped -0.04 y(-1) between 2002 and 2007, from 1.43 to 1.22 varieties per farm. Varietal losses occurred across regions and altitudinal zones, and regardless of farm turnover within the sector. Extinction of local maize populations may not have resulted in an immediate loss of alleles, but low varietal richness and changes in maize's metapopulation dynamics may prevent farmers from accessing germplasm suitable to a rapidly changing climate. Declining yields could then lead farmers to leave the sector and result in a further loss of diversity. Similarities in research approaches across crops suggest that methodological biases could conceal a loss of diversity at other centers of crop origin.

Dispersal of transgenes through maize seed systems in Mexico.

OBJECTIVES: Current models of transgene dispersal focus on gene flow via pollen while neglecting seed, a vital vehicle for gene flow in centers of crop origin and diversity. We analyze the dispersal of maize transgenes via seeds in Mexico, the crop's cradle. METHODS: We use immunoassays (ELISA) to screen for the activity of recombinant proteins in a nationwide sample of farmer seed stocks. We estimate critical parameters of seed population dynamics using household survey data and combine these estimates with analytical results to examine presumed sources and mechanisms of dispersal. RESULTS: Recombinant proteins Cry1Ab/Ac and CP4/EPSPS were found in 3.1% and 1.8% of samples, respectively. They are most abundant in southeast Mexico but also present in the west-central region. Diffusion of seed and grain imported from the United States might explain the frequency and distribution of transgenes in west-central Mexico but not in the southeast. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the potential for transgene survival and dispersal should help design methods to regulate the diffusion of germplasm into local seed stocks. Further research is needed on the interactions between formal and informal seed systems and grain markets in centers of crop origin and diversification.

A crop population perspective on maize seed systems in Mexico.

Improvement of local germplasm through artificial selection is regarded as the main force behind maize evolution and diversity in Mexico, the crop's center of origin. This perspective neglects the larger social context of maize evolution. Using a theoretical approach and Mexico-wide data, we show that farmer-led evolution of maize is largely driven by a technological diffusion and appropriation process that selectively integrates nonlocal germplasm into local seed stocks. Our approach construes farmer practices as events in the life history of seed to build a demographic model. The model shows how random and systematic differences in management combine to structure maize seed populations into subpopulations that can spread or become extinct, in some cases independently of visible agronomic advantages. The process involves continuous population bottlenecks that can lead to diversity loss. Nonlocal germplasm thus might play a critical role in maintaining diversity in individual localities. Empirical estimates show that introduction of nonlocal seed in Central and Southeastern Mexico is rarer than previously thought; prompt replacement further prevents new seed from spreading. Yet introduced seed perceived as valuable diffuses rapidly, contributing variation in the form of type diversity or through introgression into local seed. Maize seed dynamics and evolution are thus part of a complex social process driven by farmers' desire to appropriate the value in maize farming, not always achieved by preserving or improving local seed stocks.