How many broadleaved trees are enough in conifer plantations? The economy of land sharing, land sparing and quantitative targets

For biodiversity conservation to be an effective and significant social investment, non‐marketed values of biodiversity conservation and its associated opportunity costs should be evaluated in monetary terms. In this study, we measured the willingness to pay (WTP) for bird abundance using a choice experiment (CE) based on the random utility model. We performed a cost–benefit analysis to identify the optimal proportion of broadleaved trees in conifer plantations on a volume basis to maximize the social benefits of bird conservation and wood production. The results suggested that respondents to the CE were not satisfied with their current situation and preferred an increase in bird abundance. However, the estimated WTP indicated diminishing returns of bird conservation. More specifically, WTP first greatly increased before gradually experiencing decreasing marginal values, reaching its peak and finally decreasing slightly with increasing bird abundance. Optimization analyses indicated that when the relationship between bird abundance and broadleaved tree proportion was convex, semi‐natural plantations with nonzero broadleaved tree proportion (0·02–0·22) were always optimal options. When the relationship was linear, optimal broadleaved tree proportion ranged from 0 to 0·78 and was greatly affected by wood values. When the relationship was concave, there were only two optimal broadleaved tree proportions: a very high proportion (approximately 0·90) and the lowest possible proportion (0). When the convex and concave relationships approached the linear form, comparable benefits could be attained across broad ranges of broadleaved tree proportion both within and across the relationships. In such cases, it would be useful to increase the likelihood of a feasible land‐use strategy of either land sparing or land sharing in order to be successful. Synthesis and applications. It can be difficult to set quantitative targets in biodiversity conservation solely on an ecological basis, and social benefits of biodiversity conservation can create diminishing returns in many situations. The framework we propose shows how to reconcile resource production and biodiversity conservation in the real world.