Program ID: Innovation Anthology #10
Program Date: 02/15/2007
Program Category: Environment, Forests
Environment vs Economy: The Biodiversity Trade-offs
The Alberta forest landscape is the busiest in Canada. Along with logging, there’s seismic and drilling activity, road building, utility corridors, recreational use, and encroachment from real estate development.
The pressure these human activities place on wildlife increases every day.
Dr. Vic Adamowicz holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Economics at the University of Alberta. His research for the Sustainable Forest Management Network is trying to develop a model that will help decision makers in the battle over biodiversity.
VA: What we’re looking at is the trade-off between economic development different notions of biodiversity or biodiversity conservation either fine filter or coarse filter. And, we’re trying to better isolate what those trade-offs might be if we, for example, put in targets or minimum levels of habitat loss as a biodiversity conservation goal. What would the impact be on economic development for both forestry and the energy sector? To better understand what those impacts really are.
One result of weighing these trade-offs may be the establishment of reserves to maintain some semblance of forest biodiversity.
Thanks today to the Sustainable Forest Management Network
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY, I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Images
Dr. Vic Adamowicz
