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Grand Canyon Ecosystem Services Rocky Mountain National Park Human Waste Management The WILD Foundation NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION 717 Poplar Avenue U.S. POSTAGE Boulder, CO 80304 USA PAID WWW .WILD .ORG Boulder, CO Permit No. 63 For Wilderness Worldwide WWW .IJW .ORG Sponsoring Organizations Conservation International Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry The WILD ® Foundation The Wilderness Society University of Montana, College of Forestry and Conservation and Wilderness Institute USDA Forest Service USDI Bureau of Land Management USDI Fish and Wildlife Service USDI National Park Service Grand Canyon Wilderness Foundation (South Africa) Ecosystem Services Wilderness Foundation (UK) Wilderness Leadership School (South Africa) Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness Task Force Human Waste Management SCIENCE & RESEARCH How Do Migratory Species Add Ecosystem Service Value to Wilderness? Calculating the Spatial Subsidies Provided by Protected Areas bY LAuRA LÓPeZ-HoFFmAN, DARIuS SemmeNS, and JAY DIFFeNDoRFeR Abstract: Species that migrate through protected and wilderness areas and utilize their resources, deliver ecosystem services to people in faraway locations. The mismatch between the areas that most support a species and those areas where the species provides most benefits to society can lead to underestimation of the true value of protected areas such as wilderness. We present a method to communicate the “off-site” value of wilderness and protected areas in providing habitat to migratory species that, in turn, provide benefits to people in distant locations. using northern pintail ducks (Anas acuta) as an example, the article provides a method to estimate the amount of subsidy – the value of the ecosystem services provided by a migratory species in one area versus the cost to support the species and its habitat elsewhere. Introduction Wilderness and protected areas generate benefits well beyond their boundaries – many species that migrate through wilderness areas and utilize their resources, deliver ecosystem services to people in faraway locations (Semmens et al. 2011; López-Hoffman et al. 2010). Migratory species – animals such as birds, mammals, fish, and insects that regularly migrate between two or more different areas – pro- Laura López-Hoffman Darius Semmens Jay Diffendorfer vide ecosystem services to people, such as controlling crop pests, pollinating food plants, or supporting recreational many other migratory species depend on wilderness areas for hunting, fishing, and bird-watching. For example, the food, shelter, and breeding habitat (see Figure 1). migratory Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis This mismatch between the areas that most support a mexicana) helps control cotton crop pests in the south- species and those where the species provides most benefits to western United States and northern Mexico. Female bats society can lead to underestimation of the true value of pro- migrate annually from central Mexico to the U.S.-Mexico tected areas such as wilderness. People, and most critically borderlands where they feed on corn earworm/cotton boll- decision makers, may not realize that locally used ecosystem worm, providing an estimated $700,000 worth of pest services may be linked to (supported by) distant protected control annually in one region of Texas (Cleveland et al. areas. In the United States, in an era of concern about visita- 2006). Throughout the yearly cycle of migration, bats and tion rates to national parks and wilderness areas (Pergams PeeR ReVIeWeD 14 International Journal of Wilderness APRIL 2013 • VoLume 19, NumbeR 1 spatial subsidies one location provides to, or receives, from others. All locations regularly used by a migratory species can both provide and receive benefits via migration sup- port. Locations provide benefits by contributing to the overall viability of migratory species that in turn provide services to humans elsewhere in their range. Locations receive benefits in the form of services provided locally by migratory populations that are depen- dent on distant areas. Therefore, the net ecosystem service subsidy either provided or received by an area is a balance between the services received Figure 1 – Mexican free-tailed bats near Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas. Photo by A. Russell. from a species dependent on other locations and the support the area pro- and Zaradic 2008; Cordell et al. 2008), communicate the value of protected vides to the species. The following it is important to be able to under- areas to people and decision makers in description of how the subsidy can be stand, calculate, and communicate the distant locales. calculated is excerpted from Semmens full value of wilderness (Watson and et al. (2011), which can be referenced Venn 2012), including the “on-site” Calculating the Spatial for additional details. benefits provided within or near pro- Subsidy Provided by a For a single species, the gross tected areas and the “off-site” benefits Wilderness Area migration support provided (out) by provided to people far beyond area Consider a wildlife refuge on a migra- location A to all other locations, MAo, boundaries (Loomis and Richardson tory flyway that is widely judged a is simply the value of migratory ser- 2001). The purpose of this article is to “critical” stopover site for birds. vices provided at all other locations present a method to communicate the Scientists trying to ascertain the eco- multiplied by the species’ proportional “off-site” value of wilderness areas in system service “value” of this refuge dependence on location A: providing habitat to migratory species would traditionally consider the that, in turn, provide benefits to people number of visitors, how much the (1) in distant locations. average visitor spends, and any other Where VS is the total value of ser- What is the full ecosystem service goods or services extracted from or vices provided by a species S throughout value of protected areas? How do pro- provided by the refuge. If they were to its range, VSA is the value of services tected areas support the delivery of consider the birds, however, they provided at location A, and DSA is the ecosystem services in distant locations would recognize the refuge plays an proportional dependence of the spe- by providing habitat for migratory important role in supporting bird cies’ population on location A. species? Using northern pintail ducks migration and thus the overall ability Locations can be defined in any (Anas acuta) as an example, we (1) of the species to provide ecosystem manner and number, provided they outline a method to estimate the services in other locations – a service encompass the full migratory range of amount of subsidy – the value of the that was previously unaccounted for in a species. Values for DS must satisfy ecosystem services provided by pintails the valuation of the refuge. This the following two requirements: in one area versus the cost to support “migration support” is a type of sup- 0 ≤ DSL ≤ 1 the species and its habitat elsewhere, porting service (sensu Millennium (2) describe how the approach can be Ecosystem Assessment 2003) provided applied to account for individual wil- by ecosystems. By understanding the where DSL represents the propor- derness areas, and (3) suggest how nature of migration support as an eco- tional dependence at any given such an approach could be used to system service, it is possible to quantify location, and L encompasses all m APRIL 2013 • VoLume 19, NumbeR 1 International Journal of Wilderness 15 locations used by a species. The latter tial subsidies for three species: northern requirement assumes migratory spe- pintail ducks, monarch butterflies cies are dependent on the persistence (6) (Danaus plexippus) and Mexican free- of favorable conditions across their tailed bats. entire range; they cannot be more or less than 100% dependent on their (7) Global Importance of environment. Wilderness for Migratory The gross migration support The migratory ranges of each spe- Species received (in) by a location from all cies need not overlap completely. Around the world, many wilderness other locations, MAi, is the product of Equation 6 still satisfies the require- and protected areas support migratory a species’ dependence on all other loca- ment of Equation 4, provided that the species, often by design. For instance, tions and the value of services provided combined spatial extent of all ranges is the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere locally: considered. Reserve in Mexico supports overwin- Despite the conceptual frame- tering congregations of eastern North (2) work, estimating real values for VS and American monarchs, and the Maasai The migration support values cal- DS presents a substantial challenge. Mara/Serengeti National Parks in Africa culated in Equations 1 and 2 are based Estimates of VS must be location spe- support massive migrations of wilde- on the annual monetary value of ser- cific, yet measured across all locations. beests and other ungulates. In the vices provided by the migratory species This creates considerable hurdles both United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife (see Semmens et al. 2011 for a discus- in the required ecological under- Service refuge system and other man- sion of how nonmonetary values could standing of a species and its valuation aged lands in the Prairie Pothole Region be incorporated into this approach). at each location. Estimates of DS must account for only 2% of the breeding The net difference between out- allow comparisons of different sites in habitat for all waterfowl,
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