Environmental changes in biodiversity hotspot ecosystems of
South Ecuador: RESPonse and feedback effECTs (FOR2730)

Abstract:

Economic approaches based on the probabilistic framework were applied to support land use management in Ecuador. Compensations to prevent further land conversion resulted lower when a concave utility function was used. Diversification applied to risky conventional farming showed that sustainable options are suited for portfolios if correlation between returns is kept low; in every case at least two options constituted the optimal combinations. Thus, despite limitations of bio-economic models, they constitute a reliable tool for normative orientations at the farm level.