Ecological-Economic Models for Improving the Cost-Effectiveness of Biodiversity Conservation Policies

Abstract

Compared to other areas of environmental policy there has been little research addressing the cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation policies. One important reason is that meaningfully applying the traditional neoclassical analysis of environmental policy instruments to conservation issues often requires combining it with ecological knowledge. The paper gives an overview of existing research which analyses cost-effectiveness issues of conservation policies integrating ecological and economic knowledge in models and outlines some research opportunities where ecological-economic models could be usefully applied in the future. Furthermore, the paper reflects on the integration of ecological and economic knowledge in models with a particular focus on a topic that certainly complicates co-operation between ecologists and economists but has received little attention so far and needs to be better understood if integration is to be improved: different modelling cultures in economics and ecology.