Journal of Japan Society of Civil Engineers, Ser. D3 (Infrastructure Planning and Management)
Online ISSN : 2185-6540
ISSN-L : 2185-6540
Paper (In Japanese)
OPTIMAL LAND USE POLICIES TO MITIGATE DAMAGES BY BEARS AND TO CONSERVE WILDLIFE
Jun YOSHIDATomoko IMOTOTatsuhito KONO
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2019 Volume 75 Issue 2 Pages 47-58

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Abstract

 There is a growing concern that wild bears encroach into cities in Japan, which has adverse impacts on agriculture and human safety. This paper theoretically analyzes the socially optimal land use policies, such as regulating total area of residential and agricultural land and controlling the number of plants that is a main food source of bears, considering the following three externalities: (a) ecosystem services, (b) damages to agricultural products by bears, and (c) farmers’ fear of encountering bears. We find that, even if there exist these three externalities, the equilibrium size of residential area is consistent with the social optimum if bears do not enter the residential area, and that the optimal farmland size could be larger or smaller than the equilibrium size, which depends on the tradeoff between the loss in ecosystem services from expanding farmland and the decrease in the number of bears that have damages to the agricultural products and the farmers’ fear of encountering bears.

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© 2019 Japan Society of Civil Engineers
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