title: Effects of disputes and easement violations on the cost-effectiveness of land conservation.
abstract: Conservation initiatives to protect and restore valued species communities in human-dominated landscapes face challenges linked to their potential costs. Conservation easements on private land may represent a cost-effective alternative to land purchase, but long-term costs to monitor and enforce easements, or defend legal challenges, remain uncertain. We explored the cost-effectiveness of conservation easements, defined here as the fraction of the high-biodiversity landscape potentially protected via investment in easements versus land purchase. We show that easement violation and dispute rates substantially affect the estimated long-term cost-effectiveness of an easement versus land purchase strategy. Our results suggest that conservation easements can outperform land purchase as a strategy to protect biodiversity as long as the rate of disputes and legal challenges is low, pointing to a critical need for monitoring data to reduce costs and maximize the value of conservation investments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia , Vancouver British Columbia , Canada.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schuster
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia , Vancouver British Columbia , Canada.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Arcese
keywords: Biodiversity conservation; Conservation covenant; Conservation easement; Cost-effectiveness; Easement violations; Easment failure; Ecosystem services; Landscape prioritization; Legal disputes