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Larger gains from improved management over sparing–sharing for tropical forests

Nature Sustainability volume 2, pages 53–61 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Tropical forests are globally important for both biodiversity conservation and the production of economically valuable wood products. To deliver both simultaneously, two contrasting approaches have been suggested: one partitions forests (sparing); the other integrates both objectives in the same location (sharing). To date, the ‘sparing or sharing’ debate has focused on agricultural landscapes, with scant attention paid to forest management. We explore the delivery of biodiversity and wood products in a continuum of sparing-to-sharing scenarios, using spatial optimization with set economic returns in East Kalimantan, Indonesia—a biodiversity hotspot. We found that neither sparing nor sharing extremes are optimal, although the greatest conservation value was attained towards the sparing end of the continuum. Critically, improved management strategies, such as reduced-impact logging, provided larger conservation gains than altering the balance between sparing and sharing, particularly for endangered species. Ultimately, debating sparing versus sharing has limited value while larger gains remain from improving forest management.

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Fig. 1: The context of the study.
Fig. 2: Spatial sparing and sharing scenarios.
Fig. 3: Optimal sparing or sharing strategies.
Fig. 4: The sparing-to-sharing continuum for different taxa and IUCN red list categories when either allowing improved management (red) or constraining the problem to conventional management types (blue).
Fig. 5: Contribution to the optimal objective value from improved management and sparing/sharing strategies across the range of conservation objectives.

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Code availability

We formulated the integer linear programming problem using the R programming language63 and solved it using the software Gurobi64. The R code is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Data availability

The data sets analysed in this paper are available via https://doi.org/10.5063/F1GX48S7.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant no. DP160101397. Support was also provided by funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP), a partnership of The Nature Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara (https://snappartnership.net). F.A.A.K was supported by a Niche Research Grant Scheme, grant no. NRGS/1087/2–13(01). We would like to thank A. Klassen, C. Romero, N. Wolff and all members of the SNAPP Forest Sparing or Sharing team for useful discussions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Rebecca K. Runting, Jessie A. Wells & James E. M. Watson

  2. The Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Rebecca K. Runting & Hugh P. Possingham

  3. The Nature Conservancy Indonesia Program, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta, Indonesia

    Ruslandi & Musnanda Satar

  4. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA

    Bronson W. Griscom, Jessie A. Wells, Peter Ellis & Sara M. Leavitt

  5. Department of Biology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA

    Bronson W. Griscom

  6. Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Matthew J. Struebig & Nicolas J. Deere

  7. ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Erik Meijaard & Hugh P. Possingham

  8. Borneo Futures Project, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

    Erik Meijaard & Marc Ancrenaz

  9. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Zuzana Burivalova

  10. Borneo Nature Foundation, Palangka Raya, Indonesia

    Susan M. Cheyne

  11. Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

    Susan M. Cheyne

  12. The Nature Conservancy, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Edward T. Game & Hugh P. Possingham

  13. School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Edward T. Game

  14. Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    F. E. Putz

  15. Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany

    Andreas Wilting

  16. HUTAN–Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Programme, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

    Marc Ancrenaz

  17. Faculty of Resource Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Malaysia

    Faisal A. A. Khan

  18. Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Andrew J. Marshall

  19. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Andrew J. Marshall

  20. Program in the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Andrew J. Marshall

  21. School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Andrew J. Marshall

  22. Wildlife Conservation Society, Global Conservation Program, New York, NY, USA

    James E. M. Watson

  23. Natural Resource and Environmental Studies Institute, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada

    Oscar Venter

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  1. Rebecca K. Runting
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  2. Ruslandi
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Contributions

B.G., O.V., R.K.R., E.T.G., Z.B., F.E.P., R., J.A.W., P.E., S.M.L. and M.S. conceptualized the manuscript. R.K.R., R., M.J.S., M.S. and J.A.W. developed the spatial data inputs. R.K.R. led the expert elicitation with input from E.M., M.J.S., O.V., N.J.D., A.W., E.T.G., S.M.C., M.S., A.J.M., B.G., F.A.A.K., M.A. and Z.B.. R.K.R. conducted the analyses. All authors interpreted the results and contributed to writing the paper.

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Correspondence to Rebecca K. Runting.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Tables 1–9, Supplementary Figs. 1–5, Supplementary Results, Supplementary References 1–33

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Runting, R.K., Ruslandi, Griscom, B.W. et al. Larger gains from improved management over sparing–sharing for tropical forests. Nat Sustain 2, 53–61 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0203-0

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