Enhancing the conservation value of countryside: Hawaii and Costa Rica as test systems

This project's overarching goal is to make conservation economically attractive and commonplace on land that is managed largely for human enterprise -- "countryside." Researchers propose to develop the scientific, economic and institutional basis for achieving this goal. We aim to characterize the potential conservation value of countryside in terms of biodiversity and vital ecosystem services, such as the provision of fertile soil, productive forests and climate stability. We also seek to help private landowners and societies realize this potential by characterizing the ecological, economic, legal and other social tradeoffs associated with alternative patterns of land use. We will strive to make our conceptual framework and analytical approaches generalizable by working in two contrasting and exceptionally biodiverse systems that already serve as models for the world: Hawaii and Costa Rica.

Principal Investigators:

Gretchen Daily Bing Professor in Environmental Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Meg Caldwell Senior Lecturer in Law and at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Paul Ehrlich Bing Professor of Population Studies, Emeritus

Pam Matson Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Environmental Studies, Director, Change Leadership for Sustainability and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute

Roz Naylor William Wrigley Professor, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Economics

Barton Thompson Robert E. Paradise Professor in Natural Resources Law and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Peter Vitousek Clifford G. Morrison Professor in Population and Resource Studies, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Earth System Science