Protected Areas and the Environmental Kuznets Curve in European countries

Protected areas are a natural instrument for preserving biodiversity and a major defence against climate change. This paper uses an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) perspective to examine the relationship between the percentage of national territory under protection (PA%) and per capita GDP (GDPpc) in European countries. Building on the results of a previous study (Bimonte, 2002) that found a U-shaped relationship between GDPpc and PA%, it explores fate of this relationship two decades later, after two economic crises and a pandemic. It also investigates the effect of the European Union (EU) enlargement. In a dynamic perspective, it analyses the effect, if any, on national conservation policy. Due to the characteristics of the indicator chosen, which is stock-sensitive and subject to saturation effect, it verifies whether the relationship between income level and PA% is still an EKC, or whether a convergence in conservation policy has emerged and PA% is tending to a steady state. This is done by running regression models on the countries to test said EKC and β-convergence hypotheses. The results confute the persistence of an EKC and show a convergence in conservation policy in the last two decades, albeit with interesting differences between groups of countries, in particular latecomers as opposed to old member states of the EU. The results have important policy implications: when dealing with public or collective goods, or goods that produce externalities, centralised (federal) guidance is more effective than local and decentralised approaches (subsidiarity principle).