Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is exceptionally biodiverse. It contains about half of the world's remaining tropical forests, nearly one-fifth of its coastal habitats, and some of its most productive agricultural and marine areas. But agriculture, fishing and other human activities linked to rapid population and economic growth increasingly threaten that biodiversity. Moreover, poverty, weak regulatory capacity, and limited political will hamper conservation.
Given this dilemma, it is critically important to design conservation strategies on the basis of the best available information about both biodiversity and the track records of the various policies that have been used to protect it. This rigorously researched book has three key aims. It describes the status of biodiversity in LAC, the main threats to this biodiversity, and the drivers of these threats. It identifies the main policies being used to conserve biodiversity and assesses their effectiveness and potential for further implementation.
It proposes five specific lines of practical action for conserving LAC biodiversity, based on: green agriculture; strengthening terrestrial protected areas and co-management; improving environmental governance; strengthening coastal and marine resource management; and improving biodiversity data and policy evaluation.
About the Author: Allen Blackman is Thomas Klutznick Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas, Austin and a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on environmental and natural resource policy in Latin America.
Rebecca Epanchin-Niell is a Fellow at Resources for the Future. She received a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Davis, M.S. degrees in Biology and Applied Economics from University of Nevada, Reno, and a B.S. from Stanford University. Her research tackles issues at the intersection of ecology and economics.
Juha Siikamäki is Associate Research Director and Fellow at Resources for the Future. He has a Ph.D. from University of California, Davis in Environmental Policy Analysis. His research focuses on economic analyses of ecosystem services and biodiversity, especially economic valuation and conservation prioritization.
Daniel Velez-Lopez is a PhD student in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and former Research Assistant at Resources for the Future. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Maryland. His research focuses on environmental policy and political economy in developing countries.
