Climate Change and the Cost of Conserving Species in Madagascar

Abstract

We examined the cost of conserving species as climate changes. We used a Maxent species distribution model to predict the ranges from 2000 to 2080 of 74 plant species endemic to the forests of Madagascar under 3 climate scenarios. We set a conservation target of achieving 10,000 ha of forest cover for each species and calculated the cost of achieving this target under each scenario. We interviewed managers of projects to restore native forests and conducted a literature review to obtain the net present cost per hectare of management actions to maintain or establish forest cover. For each species, we added hectares of land from lowest to highest cost per additional year of forest cover until the conservation target was achieved throughout the time period. Climate change was predicted to reduce the size of species’ ranges, the overlap between species’ ranges and existing or planned protected areas, and the overlap between species’ ranges and existing forest. As a result, climate change increased the cost of achieving the conservation target by necessitating successively more costly management actions: additional management within existing protected areas (US$0–60/ha); avoidance of forest degradation (i.e., loss of biomass) in community‐managed areas ($160–576/ha); avoidance of deforestation in unprotected areas ($252–1069/ha); and establishment of forest on nonforested land within protected areas ($802–2710/ha), in community‐managed areas ($962–3226/ha), and in unprotected areas ($1054–3719/ha). Our results suggest that although forest restoration may be required for the conservation of some species as climate changes, it is more cost‐effective to maintain existing forest wherever possible.

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