Undeveloped Land Losses Rising:
If current development rates continue, at least 2 million acres of forest and farmland in North Carolina will disappear over the next 20 years, says a report released today by Environment North Carolina, a conservation advocacy group.
The report examines federal data about development rates in the past two decades and uses that to project loss of farmland and forests in the next 20 years.
Since 1987, the amount of developed land in North Carolina increased by 1.86 million acres, including 327,000 acres in the Triangle, the report says.
The worst forecasts project linearly into the future. I wonder if this one does that? During the past 20 years, North Carolina has lost almost 2 million acres. During the next 20 years North Carolina will lose another 2 million acres. Hmmm.
Supporters of an open space initiative seized the report as evidence that the General Assembly needs to ask voters for a $1 billion bond package to purchase about 740,000 acres of natural and open lands.
$1351 (plus interest) per acre. This is a similar issue that is considered in the paper that I presented at the EPA Workshop.
The policy question is: why should the state purchase a private good? The justification is that open space provides public goods benefits. These are nonrival and nonexcudable goods and the market price does not capture their full value. In the Saginaw Bay coastal wetlands study, we estimate the value of an acre is about $3500, and that may be conservative. The value of land in Saginaw Bay is probably less than that so it makes economic sense to buy some acreage.
Are the public good benefits of open space in North Carolina significantly greater than $1351? There is research on this but I'm too lazy right now to figure out the values. Maybe a professor at a large, midwestern research university might ask the specialists down the hall?