Assessing the local economic impacts of land protection

• Published in: Conservation biology 2019-10, Vol.33 (5), p.1035-1044
• Main Authors: Sims, Katharine R. E., Thompson, Jonathan R., Meyer, Spencer R., Nolte, Christoph, Plisinski, Joshua S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: conservación de tierras; conservación y desarrollo; conservation and development; Conservation of Natural Resources; Developing Countries; Economic activities; Economic conditions; Economic development; Economic growth; Economic impact; Economic models; Economics; economía local; empleo; Employment; Housing; Impact analysis; Labour; Land conservation; local economies; New England; Nueva Inglaterra; Permits; Population Dynamics; private land protection; protección de tierras privadas; protected areas; Protection; Rural areas; áreas protegidas
• ISSN: 0888-8892; 1523-1739
• DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13318

Land protection, whether public or private, is often controversial at the local level because residents worry about lost economic activity. We used panel data and a quasi‐experimental impact‐evaluation approach to determine how key economic indicators were related to the percentage of land protected. Specifically, we estimated the impacts of public and private land protection based on local area employment and housing permits data from 5 periods spanning 1990–2015 for all major towns and cities in New England. To generate rigorous impact estimates, we modeled economic outcomes as a function of the percentage of land protected in the prior period, conditional on town fixed effects, metro‐region trends, and controls for period and neighboring protection. Contrary to narratives that conservation depresses economic growth, land protection was associated with a modest increase in the number of people employed and in the labor force and did not affect new housing permits, population, or median income. Public and private protection led to different patterns of positive employment impacts at distances close to and far from cities, indicating the importance of investing in both types of land protection to increase local opportunities. The greatest magnitude of employment impacts was due to protection in more rural areas, where opportunities for both visitation and amenity‐related economic growth may be greatest. Overall, we provide novel evidence that land protection can be compatible with local economic growth and illustrate a method that can be broadly applied to assess the net economic impacts of protection. Article impact statement: Public and private protected lands in New England increased local employment and the labor force. Evaluación de los Impactos de la Protección de Terrenos sobre la Economía Local Resumen La protección de terrenos públicos o privados a menudo es controversial a nivel local debido a la preocupación que tienen los residentes por la pérdida de actividades económicas. Usamos un panel de datos y una estrategia casi experimental de evaluación de impacto para determinar cómo los indicadores clave están relacionados con el porcentaje de terrenos protegidos. En específico, estimamos los impactos de la protección de terrenos privados y públicos con base en el empleo en el área local y los datos de permisos residenciales en cinco periodos que abarcaron de 1990 a 2015 para las principales ciudades y pueblos de Nueva Inglaterra. Para generar estim