title: Opportunities for cost-sharing in conservation: variation in volunteering effort across protected areas.
abstract: Efforts to expand protected area networks are limited by the costs of managing protected sites. Volunteers who donate labor to help manage protected areas can help defray these costs. However, volunteers may be willing to donate more labor to some protected areas than others. Understanding variation in volunteering effort would enable conservation organizations to account for volunteer labor in their strategic planning. We examined variation in volunteering effort across 59 small protected areas managed by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, a regional conservation nonprofit in the United Kingdom. Three surveys of volunteering effort reveal consistent patterns of variation across protected areas. Using the most detailed of these sources, a survey of site managers, we estimate that volunteers provided 3200 days of labor per year across the 59 sites with a total value exceeding that of paid staff time spent managing the sites. The median percentage by which volunteer labor supplements management costs on the sites was 36%. Volunteering effort and paid management costs are positively correlated, after controlling for the effect of site area. We examined how well a range of characteristics of the protected areas and surrounding communities explain variation in volunteering effort. Protected areas that are larger have been protected for longer and that are located near to denser conurbations experience greater volunteering effort. Together these factors explain 38% of the observed variation in volunteering effort across protected areas.
authors: Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom. p.armsworth@utk.edu
authors: Paul R
authors: PR
authors: Armsworth
authors: Lisette
authors: L
authors: Cantú-Salazar
authors: Mark
authors: M
authors: Parnell
authors: Josephine E
authors: JE
authors: Booth
authors: Rob
authors: R
authors: Stoneman
authors: Zoe G
authors: ZG
authors: Davies
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics* / Q000379:methods*; D017047:Cost Sharing / Q000379:methods*; D004739:England; D016014:Linear Models; D010934:Planning Techniques; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014838:Volunteers
references: Perspect Public Health. 2011 Mar;131(2):71-81
references: 21462750
references: Environ Manage. 2006 Jul;38(1):84-98
references: 16738822
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 Jun 29;101(26):9694-7
references: 15205483
references: Conserv Biol. 2011 Apr;25(2):295-304
references: 21129029
references: Conserv Biol. 2011 Jun;25(3):607-17
references: 21507061
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Apr 4;103(14):5403-8
references: 16554375
references: Conserv Biol. 2009 Apr;23(2):307-16
references: 19183201
references: Trends Ecol Evol. 2009 Sep;24(9):467-71
references: 19586682
references: PLoS One. 2009 Oct 07;4(10):e7367
references: 19809511
references: Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2009 Apr;1162:237-64
references: 19432651
references: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Feb 4;100(3):1046-50
references: 12552123
references: Trends Ecol Evol. 2006 Dec;21(12):681-7
references: 17050033