On Sustainable Use of Renewable Resources in Protected Areas as an Instrument of Biodiversity Conservation : A Bioeconomic Analysis

The objective of this dissertation is to provide a theoretical framework for answering the question, whether and under which biological and socio-economic conditions the sustainable use of wild species in or around protected areas is an adequate strategy for biodiversity conservation. To do this, the dynamic interaction between the use of wild species, management of protected areas, population levels of the utilized species and poaching is investigated. A nonlinear bioeconomic model with two state variables (resource stock, management capital stock) and two control variables (harvest rate, investment rate) is developed on the basis of the traditional bioeconomic model and optimal control theory. The model identifies eight fundamental factors that influence the equilibrium population levels of the utilized species. In sum, the lower the discount rate, the depreciation rate of management capital, the poaching coefficient and the cost coefficient of investment are, and the higher the intrinsic growth rate of species, the non-consumptive value coefficient of species, the efficiency coefficient of management capital and the gross profit coefficient of harvest are, the higher the equilibrium population levels of harvested species will be. An assessment procedure is developed and applied for the case study with reference to several conservation programs in the A-Li-Shan area of Taiwan. The case study shows that, some factors that are newly introduced in our model, namely the non-consumptive value coefficient of species, the efficiency coefficient of management capital and the cost coefficient of investment explain the differences of the performance of various conservation programs in the area concerned.