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by claude@2026-07, 2026-07-14
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This preprint uses an agent-based modelling approach to compare biodiversity outcomes over time from two private/communal land acquisition strategies: purchasing land or renting it via payments for management under agri-environment schemes, while varying budgets and landowner willingness to engage. The authors report that buying land consistently produces better outcomes, with biodiversity scores far higher when the entire budget is for buying versus renting, largely because purchase enables management in perpetuity and increases parcel-level biodiversity value over time. They also find that landowner willingness to sell or rent strongly influences results, with biodiversity scores differing markedly across willingness levels. The paper does not explicitly discuss endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.
Abstract
Most unprotected biodiversity is found outside state-owned protected areas, so developing effective conservation initiatives on privately and communally-owned land is critical. Conservationists have a long history of working with these landowners and their actions can be divided into two broad categories. The first is where they agree to take over responsibility for management, either by buying the land or agreeing on long-term leases. The second is where they “rent” the land for conservation and pay people to manage their land appropriately, often through agri-environment schemes. However, we still know relatively little about the effectiveness of these two approaches. Here we use an agent-based modelling approach to investigate the biodiversity outcomes over time of different land acquisition scenarios, based on varying buying and renting budgets and different levels of landowner willingness to engage with the conservation authority. We found that buying land always led to better conservation outcomes, with biodiversity scores being 23.4 times higher when 100% of the budget was for buying compared to when 100% of the budget was for renting. This was mostly because buying land ensured it was managed in perpetuity, allowing the biodiversity value of each land parcel to increase over time. We also found that land-owner willingness to sell or rent their land had a large impact on results, with biodiversity scores varying by 28 times depending on the level of support. Our modelling system will next be used to incorporate more sophisticated measures of biodiversity value and investigate other scenarios for developing ecological networks on privately-owned land, such as longer-term rental agreements and conservation stewardship agreements. In this way we hope to guide future conservation policy to develop large-scale conservation areas in England and inform global strategies that account for biodiversity and stakeholder preferences when designing ecological networks.
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This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.
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Most unprotected biodiversity is found outside state-owned protected areas, so developing effective conservation initiatives on privately and communally-owned land is critical. Conservationists have a long history of working with these landowners and their actions can be divided into two broad categories. The first is where they agree to take over responsibility for management, either by buying the land or agreeing on long-term leases. The second is where they “rent” the land for conservation and pay people to manage their land appropriately, often through agri-environment schemes. However, we still know relatively little about the effectiveness of these two approaches. Here we use an agent-based modelling approach to investigate the biodiversity outcomes over time of different land acquisition scenarios, based on varying buying and renting budgets and different levels of landowner willingness to engage with the conservation authority. We found that buying land always led to better conservation outcomes, with biodiversity scores being 23.4 times higher when 100% of the budget was for buying compared to when 100% of the budget was for renting. This was mostly because buying land ensured it was managed in perpetuity, allowing the biodiversity value of each land parcel to increase over time. We also found that land-owner willingness to sell or rent their land had a large impact on results, with biodiversity scores varying by 28 times depending on the level of support. Our modelling system will next be used to incorporate more sophisticated measures of biodiversity value and investigate other scenarios for developing ecological networks on privately-owned land, such as longer-term rental agreements and conservation stewardship agreements. In this way we hope to guide future conservation policy to develop large-scale conservation areas in England and inform global strategies that account for biodiversity and stakeholder preferences when designing ecological networks.
https://doi.org/10.32942/X2RW3J
Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Published: 2024-01-29 21:28
Last Updated: 2024-01-30 02:28
CC-By Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
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English
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