Chris Duerksen is managing director of Clarion Associates, a Denver-based land use consulting firm. He is the founder, president, and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute.

Cara Snyder is an independent consultant and writer; she was formerly an associate with Clarion Associates.

The Benefits of Nature Protection

Why would a community, especially elected officials, want to protect nature and natural resources? In these economic times, local governments find it difficult to make ends meet and to avoid budget overruns, much less provide more of what might be seen as a luxury to some people. However, along with the myriad intrinsic values people often place on nature, there are a host of economically important reasons for protecting natural resources and biodiversity. This chapter focuses on these benefits. Some are readily measured and well established, while the merits of others are just beginning to be recognized. Altogether, evidence continues to mount that protecting nature and promoting biodiversity make not just good sense but good dollars and cents.

For local or regional governments to seriously consider protecting nature, the bottom line must be considered. Will the costs outweigh the benefits? Can the community afford the investment? The short answer is that each community has a different set of circumstances, and ideally each community would evaluate its own overall goals, its economic realities, and its valuable characteristics. Some specific tools are available to evaluate a community's economic situation and to gauge the benefits of nature protection programs to the community.

Often, protecting nature is an obvious good investment. Resort communities have known this for a long time. If you protect nature, more tourists will want to visit, stay longer, and spend more. Although many resort areas draw on public land outside their community's boundaries, it can make financial sense to protect critical areas on private lands and ensure that visitors have a positive experience with nature within the local government boundaries as well. Of course, wildlife don't read maps—they wander in and out of public lands. But what about the majority of communities around the nation that are non-resort communities? Even then, there are many economically compelling reasons for protecting nature.

Some examples of protecting nature as a good investment—to be discussed in more detail in this chapter—include lower infrastructure service costs, benefits of green infrastructure, and increased property values. Studies of costs of facilities and infrastructure such as roads, schools, water/sewer, and emergency services have repeatedly shown that preserving open space can be more cost-effective than building a residential development on the same property. Recent experience has shown that the value of services provided by green infrastructure, such as stormwater filtration, may far outweigh the value of developing the land. Just as important, there is increasing proof that protecting natural resources is a vital factor in attracting and retaining businesses and jobs.

Americans have demonstrated that they endorse and will pay for protecting natural resources. There has been strong support for preservation of open space and habitat from voters nationwide as well as in surveys of the general public. We will delve into these topics more closely in the following pages, to remind communities why protecting nature is good for business and local economies and to give local officials the ammunition they need to make the case in persuading their colleagues and citizens to adopt effective protection strategies.

An initial decision and action to protect habitat may need to be followed by planning for future pressures on the protected area. When communities successfully preserve natural areas, that very success can increase the use of those areas, and degradation may become a pressing issue. Having mechanisms in place to prevent killing the golden goose can be just as vital as protecting the resource in the first place.

A final note: Although we focus here on the aspects of protecting nature that are most suited to quantification, as Pittsburgh mayor Tom Murphy observed at the 1999 symposium of the City Parks Forum, "Parks and many cultural events should not be forced into this kind of economic analysis mold but should have value for their own purpose." Natural areas have many undefinable benefits, and so protection efforts may lose out to more quantifiable services like highways and schools, but that does not mean communities should not value and protect natural areas.

Positive Economic Benefits

Growing evidence illustrates that nature-friendly communities can realize substantial economic benefits. From attracting and retaining employers and employees to bringing in potentially millions of tourist dollars, an investment in nature can provide measurable payoffs in the short and long term. The beauty of investing in biodiversity protection is that it provides long-lasting benefits and returns—it is not just a one-shot deal.

Attracting Businesses/Capital Investment

Study after study documents that preservation of natural resources and provision of open space are important factors in helping a region to retain existing jobs and businesses and to attract new ones. Quality-of-life matters and natural amenities are high on the list of quality-of-life ingredients. For example, the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy found that conservation of open space was critical for ensuring a higher quality of life, which the center documents as one of the most important components for attracting employers and employees to California communities.

Although quality of life...