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Andrew Balmford

Publications and source records attributed to Andrew Balmford.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2003

Global variation in terrestrial conservation costs, conservation benefits, and unmet conservation needs.

Our ability to identify cost-efficient priorities for conserving biological diversity is limited by the scarcity of data on conservation costs, particularly at fine scales. Here we address this issue using data for 139 terrestrial programs worldwide. We find that the annual costs of effective field-based conservation vary enormously, across seven orders of magnitude, from <$0.1 to >$1,000,000 per km(2). This variation can be closely predicted from positive associations between costs per unit area and an array of indices of local development. Corresponding measures of conservation benefit are limited but show opposing global trends, being higher in less developed parts of the world. The benefit-to-cost ratio of conservation is thus far greater in less developed regions, yet these are where the shortfall in current conservation spending is most marked. Substantially increased investment in tropical conservation is therefore urgently required if opportunities for cost-effective action are not to be missed.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed2002

The distribution of cultural and biological diversity in Africa.

Anthropologists, biologists and linguists have all noted an apparent coincidence in species diversity and human cultural or linguistic diversity. We present, to our knowledge, one of the first quantitative descriptions of this coincidence and show that, for 2 degrees x 2 degrees grid cells across sub-Saharan Africa, cultural diversity and vertebrate species diversity exhibit marked similarities in their overall distribution. In addition, we show that 71% of the observed variation in species richness and 36% in language richness can be explained on the basis of environmental factors, suggesting that similar factors, especially those associated with rainfall and productivity, affect the distributions of both species and languages. Nevertheless, the form of the relationships between species richness and language richness and environmental factors differs, and it is unlikely that comparable mechanisms underpin the similar patterns of species and language richness. Moreover, the fact that the environmental factors considered here explain less than half of the variation in language richness indicates that other factors, many of which are likely to be historical or social, also influence the distribution of languages.

Africa↗
PubMed2002

Economic reasons for conserving wild nature.

On the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, it is timely to assess progress over the 10 years since its predecessor in Rio de Janeiro. Loss and degradation of remaining natural habitats has continued largely unabated. However, evidence has been accumulating that such systems generate marked economic benefits, which the available data suggest exceed those obtained from continued habitat conversion. We estimate that the overall benefit:cost ratio of an effective global program for the conservation of remaining wild nature is at least 100:1.

Agriculture↗