Year: 2022
Type: preprint
Abstract: Biodiversity conservation supporting a global sustainability transformation must be inclusive, equitable, just, and embrace plural values. The conservation basic income (CBI), a proposed unconditional cash transfer to individuals residing in important conservation areas, is a potentially powerful mechanism for facilitating this radical shift in conservation. Here, we provide the first global estimates for the gross costs of CBI using spatial analyses of three plausible future conservation scenarios. Gross costs vary widely, depending on the areas and populations 10 included as well as the payment amounts: from $351 billion to $6.73 trillion annually. A $5.50/day CBI in existing protected areas in low and middle-income countries would cost $478 billion annually. These costs are significant compared to current government conservation spending, (~$133 billion in 2020) but represent a potentially sensible investment in safeguarding incalculable social and natural values as well as the estimated $44 trillion in global economic production dependent on nature.
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4224144549