Science and Policy Research

HGA is on the forefront of scientific and policy research in conservation and natural resource management, publishing influential papers in the world’s most prestigious scientific journals. A sample of publications involving HGA authors includes:

• "Using limiting factors analysis to overcome the problem of long time horizons when evaluating biodiversity conservation projects": a description and empirical examples of a methodology we developed for evaluating conservation programs, published in New Directions in Evaluation.
  
  
• “Ecotourism and economic growth in the Galapagos: an island economy-wide analysis”: this paper uses quantitative methods to raise questions about the compatibility of "ecotourism" and conservation in the unique environment of the Galapagos Islands. In press in Environment and Development Economics and featured in The Economist.

• “Tropical Forests and Climate Policy”: an essay in Science arguing that reducing tropical deforestation can make critical long-term contributions to slowing global warming.

• “IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Working Group III: Forestry” synthesizes the contribution that the world’s forests can make towards mitigating global climate change. Published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

• “Effectiveness of parks in protecting tropical biodiversity“: an international survey of protected areas managers to evaluate the effectiveness of tropical parks as a conservation tool. Published in Science, this paper was identified as one of the most influential recent papers in environmental sciences.

• “Financial costs and shortfalls in managing and expanding protected-area systems in developing countries”: an estimate of the costs and current budget shortfall to ensure the conservation of tropical biodiversity in existing parks. Published in BioScience.

• “Marketing species conservation: financial incentives can be found to conserve a species threatened by trade”: an essay arguing that effective conservation requires financial incentives to complement existing regulatory approaches. Published in Nature.

• “Rethinking Green Consumerism”: an assessment of the potential to offset ecologically destructive land use in the tropics using private market interventions. Published in Scientific American.

• “Mechanisms to Stop Logging in High Conservation Value Forests“: a review of approaches to stop industrial logging in forests of highest value for conservation”, a compilation of conservation mechanisms for conserving primary forests. Published by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Smithsonian Center for Tropical Forest Science. Distribution includes 3,000 hard copies and thousands of digital downloads.

• “Strategic assessment of tropical land use dynamics”: a series of studies on land use dynamics in the tropics and the impacts on tropical habitat conservation. Assessments include the agricultural sector (coffee, cocoa, oil palm), and the natural resources sector (oil and timber). Studies are available as a single volume published by the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science .

• “Does forest certification conserve biodiversity?”: examines the current and potential viability of third-party forestry certification as a conservation mechanism. An invited contribution for the centennial issue of Oryx, the world’s oldest conservation journal.

Our team holds affiliate research positions with leading institutions:

• Co-founder Ted Gullison is an Honorary Research Associate at the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia.