Fig. 2. Costs and benefits of protecting natural areas on private lands.
minimum area of Q
M1
, whereas a jaguar might require a minimum of Q
M2
Fig. 2. Even small private reserves, therefore, may be sufficiently
large to maintain viable populations of certain species. What matters most are management
objectives and connectivity to other protected ar- eas.
Finally, landowner decisions concerning the amount of land to protect do not occur in a
vacuum and can be affected by larger trends. This is especially true for reserves that have an eco-
tourism business. For example, ecotourism re- serves can be in what Yu et al. 1997 described as
a classic free rider situation. Given the small amount of land needed to stage a hike in the
woods, and the fact that most tourists are inca- pable of recognizing ecological damage in a re-
serve, owners do not really need to maintain a large or ecologically intact park. Instead, they can
rely on a country’s conservation reputation to bring a steady stream of paying visitors, regard-
less of conditions in their own reserves.
3. Methods
Data were collected by the first author during 14 months of fieldwork in Costa Rica, from June
1997 to August 1998. The fieldwork was part of a larger study on private reserves, including their
types, ownership patterns, social implications, spatial issues, objectives, and experience with a
government incentives program. Costa Rica was selected as the country to study for its reputation
as a conservation innovator, for its strong legal support for ownership and protection of private
land, and because previous studies have shown it to be a location where private reserves are flour-
ishing. For the purposes of this study, private reserves were defined as any land of twenty
hectares or more that was not owned by a govern- ment entity, and was managed with the intent of
preserving the land in a mostly undeveloped state. When the study began, no comprehensive list of
private reserves in Costa Rica existed. We devoted 2 months to developing such a list, drawing to-
gether records from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources.
The size of the externality for the landowner MB
S
minus MB
L
is typically greater than that depicted in Fig. 2. Marginal benefits consist not
just of the revenue reserve owners might receive from their natural areas through ecotourism, har-
vesting forest products, and other revenue pro- ducing activities, but also from non-market
values. Thus, the marginal benefit curve can be subdivided to differentiate market income from
other benefits. The MR
L
curve in Fig. 2 shows this relationship, representing the market income
earned by
a private
nature reserve.
The landowner, then, has the added externality pre-
sented by his or her non-monetary benefits of having a nature reserve. The size of this additional
externality MB
L
minus MR
L
depends on the value the owner places on non-market benefits,
which are typically related to management objec- tives. For example, MR
L
for a reserve owner focused on generating profits would be higher
than that of an owner of a non-profit reserve. The minimum amount of land needed for eco-
logical viability also varies. We have shown how a landowner decides how much land to protect, and
that this area is smaller than what society would like to see. But like the externality faced by re-
serve owners, minimum size requirements also can differ. Management goals affect not just the exter-
nality, but also the amount of land needed. The amount of land protected Q
L
may be adequate for certain species, but not for others. For exam-
ple, a population of rare beetles might require a
Primary data collection consisted of a struc- tured survey implemented during face-to-face in-
terviews with 68 reserve owners. Table 1 lists these reserves, including their locations and sizes. Sup-
plemental information reserves’ levels of protec- tion and land uses appear in Langholz 1999a .
The survey included a combination of closed and open-ended questions, thus soliciting not just
quantitative data for comparisons across reserves, but also detailed qualitative information for
added depth. Conducting the survey face-to-face provided control over who represented each re-
serve, overcame illiteracy obstacles, and bypassed an often-unreliable postal system. It also in-
creased the response rate by giving the interviewer the opportunity to work around reserve owners’
schedules, and assure them of confidentiality. Seven additional reserves participated in a pilot
test. The first author conducted 57 of the inter- views including the pilot test, and a research
assistant did the remaining 18. Forty-six of the reserves were selected at random from a list of 211
suspected reserves. The remaining 22 were inten- tionally added to the sample because they formed
part of the study that was exploring participation in a specific incentives program.
Interviews were conducted in Spanish or En- glish, according to the reserve owner’s preference.
We tape recorded and transcribed all interviews, except for three cases where the owner requested
that we not tape a portion or the entire interview. In addition to the interviews, we examined docu-
ments related to the individual reserves, visually inspected the premises of 42 of them, and inter-
viewed numerous local residents, government offi- cials, and conservation NGO representatives.
These multiple data sources, as well as discussion of preliminary findings with key informants, pro-
vided ongoing triangulation of the data Patton, 1990.
4. Results and discussion
