Quantifying trade-offs between ecological gains, economic costs, and landowners' preferences in boreal mire protection

Private land often encompasses biodiversity features of high conservation value, but its protection is not straightforward. Commonly, landowners' perspectives are rightfully allowed to influence conservation actions. This unlikely comes without consequences on biodiversity or other aspects such as economic considerations, but these consequences are rarely quantitatively considered in decision-making. In the context of boreal mire protection in Finland, we report how acknowledging landowners' resistance to protection changes the combination of mires selected to conservation compared to ignoring landowners' opinions. Using spatial prioritization, we quantify trade-offs arising between the amount of landowners' resistance, protected biodiversity, and financial costs in different conservation scenarios. Results show that the trade-offs cannot be fully avoided. Nevertheless, we show that the systematic examination of the trade-offs opens up options to alleviate them. This can promote the evaluation of different conservation policy outcomes, enabling better-informed conservation decisions and more effective and socially sustainable allocation of conservation resources.

Automated summary

Private land often contains biodiversity features of high conservation value, and the perspectives of landowners can influence conservation actions. However, the consequences on biodiversity and economic considerations from considering landowners' opinions are rarely quantitatively measured in decision-making. A study in Finland on boreal mire protection found that acknowledging landowners' resistance to protection changes the conservation sites chosen, and trade-offs occur between landowners' resistance, biodiversity protection, and financial costs in different conservation scenarios. The results suggest that while trade-offs cannot be fully avoided, a systematic examination of them can help alleviate their impacts, leading to better-informed conservation decisions and more effective allocation of resources.