Esther M. Verdejo
Liberty University
ENGL 101
Professor Powell
July 24, 2023.
How far should humans go to protect the environment?
I. Introduction
A. Overview of the environmental challenges faced by humanity.
B. The importance of biodiversity conservation in public forests.
C. Biblical Support for environmental stewardship: “The Lord God took the man and
put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15)
D. The adoption of mechanisms of design-based conservation policies is essential to
protect the environment and promote sustainability. The use of mechanism design
enables the efficient provision of public goods, such as biodiversity in public
forests, by addressing the issue of free-riding and undersupply and considering
societal preferences and the strategic behavior of agents.
II. Understanding the Challenges in Biodiversity Conservation
A. Acknowledge the concerns about declining biodiversity worldwide and its
significance. “Biodiversity has been continuously declining worldwide during the
past decades, despite the recognized importance to human well-being, ecosystem
functioning, and ecosystem resistance and resilience under climate change.”
(Augustynczik, 2019)
B. Recognize biodiversity as a public good and the issue of free riding and
undersupply.
“A main constraint to the implementation of biodiversity conservation strategies is
the fact that biodiversity is mostly considered a public good, and in the absence of
markets or policy mechanisms to promote its provision, there are incentives for
free riding and undersupply.” (Augustynczik, 2019)
C. Emphasize that various stakeholders share the concern for biodiversity
preservation.
III. Mechanism Design: A Tool for Efficient Biodiversity Provision
A. Introduction to mechanism design and its application in environmental
management. Mechanism design is a sub-field of game theory that aims to design
games or mechanisms to achieve specific economic goals, such as welfare
maximization.
B. Addressing asymmetric information in biodiversity benefits cost.
“A key issue when considering biodiversity benefits is the fact that the
preferences for biodiversity are private information, and policymakers may have
at hand only prior beliefs in terms of the willingness to pay for biodiversity.”
(Augustynczik, 2019)
C. Highlight the government’s role as a forest owner in promoting efficient
biodiversity supply.
“One option to tackle this issue is to enhance biodiversity goals in public forests.
The government, as a forest owner and aiming to promote an efficient use of
forest resources, may raise funds and apply biodiversity-oriented management
solutions in these areas.” (Augustynczik, 2019)
IV. Quantifying Biodiversity Benefits and Costs
A. Methods for quantifying social costs related to biodiversity. Social costs related to
biodiversity can be quantified through the computation of opportunity costs of
biodiversity-oriented forest management or the value of contracts for biodiversity
improvement.
B. Choice experiments for evaluating biodiversity benefits.
“The evaluation of biodiversity benefits involves indirect assessments,
predominantly applying choice experiments, where participants are asked how
much they would be willing to contribute towards an increased biodiversity
supply or by eliciting their preferences for bundles of ecosystem services.”
(Augustynczik, 2019)
C. Acknowledge that quantifying biodiversity benefits and costs can lead to better
decision-making.
V. Implementation of Mechanism Design in Public Forests
A. Prioritizing biodiversity as a public good in forest management.
“To increase the success of conservation policies, it will be necessary to prioritize
the management of biodiversity as a public good, to integrate biodiversity in both
public and private decision-making, and to facilitate policy implementation.”
(Augustynczik, 2019)
B. Using mechanism design to determine supply levels of biodiversity.
“Here we use this framework to tackle the increase in biodiversity supply in
public forests, taking into account the societal preferences for biodiversity and the
strategic behavior of the agents.” (Augustynczik, 2019)
C. Considering climate change impacts on forest development and conservation
policies.
VI. The Role of Mechanism Design in Pollution
A. Pollution is a significant environmental cause of disease and death.
“Pollution is the world’s largest environmental cause of disease and premature
death. It is responsible for an estimated 9 million death per year – 16% of all
deaths worldwide.” (Landrigan, 2019)
B. Addressing pollution-related health impacts on children.
“Children are exquisitely sensitive to pollution.” (Landrigan, 2019)
C. Mechanism design for pollution control and its integration into global health
agendas.
VII. Limitations and Challenges of Washoff Modeling for Urban Catchment
A. Understanding washoff behavior and pollutant transport in urban areas. Washoff
behavior refers to how rainfall and runoff remove accumulated pollutants on a
surface. It involves complex and interrelated processes.
B. The empirical nature of washoff modeling and its limitations.
“The washoff model is typically coupled with a buildup function to predict the
initial mass of pollutant on the surface at the start of a rain event. A major
drawback of the first-order decay model is that the model will always predict a
decreasing concentration, which is sometimes at odds with field observation.”
(Gaut, 2019)
C. Investigating the sustainability of washoff models for different forms of
pollutants. “The sustainability of the exponential washoff model for dissolved
pollutants has been investigated, including working toward a new modeling
approach based on laboratory observations, but with upscaling to the catchment
scale identified as a major challenge.” (Gaut, 2019)
VIII. Conclusion
A. Summary of the importance of mechanism design in environmental conservation.
B. Reiterate the shared value of biodiversity conservation and pollution control.
C. Call for collective action and collaboration for adopting mechanism design-based
policies to protect the environment and human well-being.
Reference
Augustynczik, A. L. D., Yousefpour, R., & Hanewinkel, M. (2019, September). Climate change
and the provision of biodiversity in public temperate forests – A mechanism design approach for
the implementation of biodiversity conservation policies. Journal of Environmental
Management, pp. 246, 706–716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.089
Landrigan, P. J., Fuller, R., Fisher, S., Suk, W. A., Sly, P., Chiles, T. C., & Bose-O’Reilly, S.
(2019, February). Pollution and children’s health. Science of the Total Environment, pp. 650,
2389–2394. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.375
Gaut, J., Chua, L. H., Irvine, K. N., & Le, S. H. (2019, September). Modelling the washoff of
pollutants in various forms from an urban catchment. Journal of Environmental Management,
246, 374–383. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.118
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