Evaluating Private Land Conservation in the Cape Lowlands,South Africa

Abstract: Evaluation is important for judiciously allocating limited conservation resources and for improving conservation success through learning and strategy adjustment. We evaluated the application of systematic conservation planning goals and conservation gains from incentive‐based stewardship interventions on private land in the Cape Lowlands and Cape Floristic Region, South Africa. We collected spatial and nonspatial data (2003–2007) to determine the number of hectares of vegetation protected through voluntary contractual and legally nonbinding (informal) agreements with landowners; resources spent on these interventions; contribution of the agreements to 5‐ and 20‐year conservation goals for representation and persistence in the Cape Lowlands of species and ecosystems; and time and staff required to meet these goals. Conservation gains on private lands across the Cape Floristic Region were relatively high. In 5 years, 22,078 ha (27,800 ha of land) and 46,526 ha (90,000 ha of land) of native vegetation were protected through contracts and informal agreements, respectively. Informal agreements often were opportunity driven and cheaper and faster to execute than contracts. All contractual agreements in the Cape Lowlands were within areas of high conservation priority (identified through systematic conservation planning), which demonstrated the conservation plan's practical application and a high level of overlap between resource investment (approximately R1.14 million/year in the lowlands) and priority conservation areas. Nevertheless, conservation agreements met only 11% of 5‐year and 9% of 20‐year conservation goals for Cape Lowlands and have made only a moderate contribution to regional persistence of flora to date. Meeting the plan's conservation goals will take three to five times longer and many more staff members to maintain agreements than initially envisaged.     

Optimal stabilization of the copper market: The problem of information

This paper investigates the scope for stabilizing commodity prices by buffer stock interventions. Optimal control is used, rather than simulation, to evaluate the scope for intervention at best. Applications to a world copper market model show that substantial but extensive gains to stabilization are possible. These gains cannot be realised by traditional bandwidth decision rules. An important difficulty is setting the level at which prices should be stabilized. The lack of this information severely reduces the achievable gains.     

A Paradigm of International Environmental Law: The Case for Controlling the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes

The production of large quantities of wastes globally has created a commercial activity involving the transfrontier shipments of hazardous wastes, intended to be managed at economically attractive waste-handling facilities located elsewhere. In fact, huge quantities of hazardous wastes apparently travel the world in search of “acceptable” waste management facilities. For instance, within the industrialized countries alone, millions of tonnes of potentially hazardous waste cross national frontiers each year on their way for recycling or to treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs) because there is no local disposal capacity for these wastes, or because legal disposal or reuse in a foreign country may be more environmentally sound, or managing the wastes in the foreign country may be less expensive than at home. The cross-boundary traffic in hazardous wastes has lately been under close public scrutiny, however, resulting in the accession of several international agreements and laws to regulate such activities. This paper discusses and analyzes the most significant control measures and major agreements in this new commercial activity involving hazardous wastes. In particular, the discussion recognizes the difficulties with trying to implement the relevant international agreements among countries of vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds. Nonetheless, it is also noted that global environmental agreements will generally be a necessary component of ensuring adequate environmental protection for the world community—and thus a need for the careful implementation of such agreements and regulations.     

Illinois redesigns its ambient water quality monitoring network

Illinois has been operating an ambient water quality network of almost 600 stations for several years. In 1977 changes in program emphasis toward intensive monitoring, the need for improved procedures and quality control in monitoring operations, and the desire to create a single data base of all Illinois State monitoring data, resulted in a redesign of the ambient monitoring program.A unique cooperative program between the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the US Geological Survey provides for their monitoring a portion of the network. The Survey provides flow data at most network stations as well as extensive manpower training, equipment, data processing, and program quality control. Informal agreements with other agencies have permitted a great reduction in the monitoring effort required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.     

VOLUNTARY AGREEMENTS IN WATERSHED PROTECTION EXPERIENCES FROM COSTA RICA

This article analyses the application of voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs) in watershed protection in Costa Rica. Next to an involvement of private energy firms, the Costa Rican state, and farmers, the participation of NGOs is a remarkable feature. From an analysis of these multi-stakeholder arrangements, it is concluded that these arrangements bring benefits to all actors involved. VEAs have been able to grow as powerful policy instruments, generating positive environmental effects. Essential is their embedded ness in a broader set of environmental policies, especially related to forest management Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Good news for environmental self-regulation? Finding the right link

We investigate the stock market response to firm disclosure of positive environmental information and the link from that information to environmental outcomes. We classify environmental media releases by informational content and value relevance, and assess the abnormal stock returns of each type of event. While announcements of future environmental activities lead to the largest favorable stock market reactions, there is no guaranteed link from this type of information to environmental outcomes. Further analysis of the abnormal returns shows that the magnitude of the stock market reaction depends on firm financial characteristics across all event types rather than on firm environmental performance. Our results indicate that the ability for voluntary environmental information disclosure to induce environmental self-regulation is limited to the extent that firms are able to follow through with their announcements of planned environmental activities.     

Bilateral Monopoly: A Market for Intercountry River Water Allocation

/ Collaboration of countries with an aim to share fresh surface water resources promises to generate potential joint benefits. Unfortunately, existing agreements lack the perspective and capacity to produce any real action in efficient cross-border water allocation. When that problem is encountered by any two adjacent countries claiming riparian rights to the same watercourse, this paper suggests that apossible solution to be examined is a water market. This market requires the relevant countries to engage in a bargaining process as described in the theory of bilateral monopoly. The bargaining process should determine both the water quantity to be transferred and the price to be paid. However, there has to be a fair allocation of the joint benefits resulting from the transfer for a sustainable price solution. As an empirical illustration, the paper examines the case of river Nestos shared by Bulgaria and Greece in the southern Balkans. A net revenue function quadratic in water is specified and estimated using scarce data on three agricultural crops in Greece. Sensitivity analysis on the size and distribution of the net benefits is also performed.KEY WORDS: Bilateral agreements; Water markets; Efficient allocation     

Thanks but no thanks: A new policy to reduce land conflict

Land conflicts in developing countries are costly both directly and through increased land degradation. An important policy goal is to create respect for borders. This often involves mandatory, expensive interventions. We propose a new policy design, which in theory promotes neighborly relations at low cost. A salient feature is the option to by-pass regulation through consensus. The key idea combines the insight that social preferences transform social dilemmas into coordination problems with the logic of forward induction. As a first, low-cost pass at empirical evaluation, we conduct an experiment among farmers in the Ethiopian highlands, a region exhibiting features typical of countries where borders are often disputed.     

The principal–agent model with multilateral externalities: An application to climate agreements

We consider contracting of a principal with an agent if multilateral externalities are present. The motivating example is that of an international climate agreement given private information about the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for emissions abatement. Due to multilateral externalities the principal uses her own emissions besides subsidies to incentivize the agent and to assure his participation. Optimal contracts equalize marginal abatement costs and, thus, can be implemented by a system of competitive permit trading. Moreover, optimal contracts can include a boundary part (i.e., the endogenous, type dependent participation constraint is binding), which is not a copy of the outside option of no contract. Compared to this outside option, a contract can increase emissions of the principal for types with a low WTP, and reduce her payoff for high types. Subsidies can be constant or even decreasing in emission reductions, and turn negative so that the agent reduces emissions and pays the principal.     

Towards emergency management of natural disasters and critical accidents: the Greek experience

This paper presents the findings of a prototype study which sought to identify factors that contribute to effective emergency management in Greece and other European states regarding both natural disasters and critical accidents. The parameters for proper action and successful intervention in operational and logistical are identified based on the document analysis and interviews with emergency responders. The interviews are conducted between state-owned and voluntary organizations. They were asked to rate in terms of their importance for effective emergency response efforts. This paper offers useful information of the organization and management of emergency response in Greece, as well as provides interesting responders' opinions data concerning important priorities in the emergency management area. Despite the fact that the data come from the Greek experience, the conclusions may be applied for a broader use in the emergency planning of disasters. The whole study has been undertaken within the European Pre-Emergencies (PreEm) project.