Economic Incentives to Conserve Wildlife on Private Lands: Analysis and Policy

Some believe that provision of private property rights in wildlife on private land provides a powerful economic incentive for nature conservation because it enables property owners to market such wildlife or its attributes. If such marketing is profitable, private landholders will conserve the wildlife concerned and its required habitat. But land is not always most profitably used for exploitation of wildlife, and many economic values of wildlife (such as non-use economic values) cannot be marketed. The mobility of some wildlife adds to the limitations of the private-property approach. While some species may be conserved by this approach, it is suboptimal as a single policy approach to nature conservation. Nevertheless, it is being experimented with, in the Northern Territory of Australia where landholders had a possibility of harvesting on their properties a quota of eggs and chicks of red-tailed black cockatoos for commercial sale. This scheme was expected to provide an incentive to private landholders to retain hollow trees essential for the nesting of these birds but failed. This case and others are analysed. Despite private-property failures, the long-term survival of some wildlife species depends on their ability to use private lands without severe harassment, either for their migration or to supplement their available resources, for example, the Asian elephant. Nature conservation on private land is often a useful, if not essential, supplement to conservation on public lands. Community and public incentives for such conservation are outlined.     

From policy mix to policy networks: assessing climate and land use policy interactions in Mato Grosso,Brazil

ABSTRACT

In the climate and land use fields, policy mixes are complex in terms of the levels of governance, actors, and roles. They consist of policy instruments that target different actors and address multiple goals across several policy sectors and levels. The analysis of these complex arrangements extends beyond purely technical efficiency criteria, as several sources of tension between instruments may be identified, such as conflicting interests, goals, and approaches to implementation. The proliferation of governance networks complicates the understanding of actors’ interactions, the types of authority influencing the outcomes of policy mixes, and importance of different levels of governance. This article provides a framework to address these analytical challenges, particularly the interconnected networks of policy actors and policy instruments. It draws on polycentric governance literature to analyse how power matters in policy networks. This includes identifying distinct types of power, actors’ position, and variables that explain patterns of conflict, competition, convergence, and divergence in policy choices and outcomes. The framework is applied to the climate and land use policies implemented in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Several methods were used to clarify these variables and to characterise policy mixes being implemented in the region, including social network analysis.     

Assessing conservation opportunity on private land: socio-economic, behavioral, and spatial dimensions

This study presents a method for assessing conservation opportunity on private land based on landholders' socio-economic, behavioral, and farm characteristics. These characteristics include age, gender, education, level of off-farm income, farm size, proportion of remnant native vegetation on-farm, and ecological value of native vegetation on-farm. A sample of landholders who own greater than 2 ha of land in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin region were sent a mail-based survey about their values and preferences for environmental management (N = 659, 52% response). Cross-tabulations and ANOVA statistical analysis techniques were used to compare the socio-economic attributes across three landholder classes: disengaged, moderately engaged, and highly engaged in native vegetation planting. Results indicate that highly engaged landholders were more likely to be female, formally educated, hobby farmers who managed small parcels of land and have high off-farm incomes, whereas disengaged landholders held significantly stronger farming connections (more farming experience, family have lived on the farm for more generations). Spatial analysis revealed area-specific differences in conservation opportunity and conservation priority. In some areas, properties of high ecological value were managed by highly engaged landholders, but nearby properties of high value were managed by moderately engaged or disengaged landholders. Environmental managers therefore cannot assume areas of high conservation priority will be areas of high conservation opportunity. At the regional scale, the potential for revegetation seems most promising within the moderately engaged landholder group considering the vast amount of land managed by this group in areas of high ecological value, particularly within the less represented Mallee and Coorong and Rangelands sub-regions. We suggest that incentive schemes which purchase conservation need to be targeted at disengaged landholders; mentoring schemes led by commercial farmers highly engaged in native vegetation planting should be directed at moderately engaged landholders, and; awards programs which acknowledge conservation successes should be targeted at highly engaged landholders.     

Evaluating the suitability of policy instruments for urban flood risk reduction

ABSTRACT

City governments have access to a range of policy instruments to reduce flood risk, but choosing among these tools is challenging. This article identifies fourteen different policy instruments that could contribute to urban flood risk reduction and draws on interviews with expert stakeholders to score these instruments across eight evaluation criteria. The results indicate which policy tools the interviewees consider to be most and least suitable and illuminate the trade-offs inherent in instrument selection. Complementary relationships between the various instruments are also considered in the context of instrument mixes – combinations of multiple policy tools designed to maximise urban flood risk reduction.     

INTEGRATING SOCIO‐ECONOMIC AND BIOPHYSICAL DATA TO UNDERPIN COLLABORATIVE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT1

ABSTRACT: Watersheds are widely accepted as a useful geography for organizing natural resource management in Australia and the United States. It is assumed that effective action needs to be underpinned by an understanding of the interactions between people and the environment. While there has been some social research as part of watershed planning, there have been few attempts to integrate socio‐economic and biophysical data to improve the efficacy of watershed management. This paper explores that topic. With limited resources for social research, watershed partners in Australia chose to focus on gathering spatially referenced socio‐economic data using a mail survey to private landholders that would enable them to identify and refine priority issues, develop and improve communication with private landholders, choose policy options to accomplish watershed targets, and evaluate the achievement of intermediate watershed plan objectives. Experience with seven large watershed projects provides considerable insight about the needs of watershed planners, how to effectively engage them, and how to collect and integrate social data as part of watershed management.     

Evaluating policy options for managing diffuse source water quality in Lake Taupo,New Zealand

Environmental policy makers are interested in ways to prevent environmental degradation without significantly limiting economic and social development. Increasingly, market-based instruments are being incorporated into the suite of policy tools to accomplish these aims. However, the lack of information on market-based instruments accessible to non-economists limits understanding of how and when a market-based instrument can be integrated into a traditional policy regime. This paper aims to address the lack of accessible information using a generic screening process for policy instruments demonstrated through application to a non-point source pollution problem in Lake Taupo, New Zealand.     

The limitations of environmental management systems in Australian agriculture

The efficacy of government-supported programs to encourage improved management of land and water systems associated with agricultural land in Australia has been mixed. The broad approach of Australian governments is reviewed briefly. Evidence is presented from case assessments of a program to promote adoption of environmental management systems (EMSs) to improve environmental outcomes from agricultural practices. EMSs are systems implemented to manage the environmental impacts and ameliorate environmental risk associated with business activity. Data are presented on reported EMS activity and experience of four selected groups of farmers in Victoria, south-eastern Australia, representing broad-acre cropping, beef and dairy farming. The pro-environmental behaviours of farmers were mediated through voluntary adoption of government and industry sponsored EMSs, often with financial incentives and other support. Findings from the study were that adoption of EMS practices with sufficient public benefits is unlikely to occur at sufficient scale for significant environmental impact. Farmers more readily adopted practices which were financially beneficial than those which had a positive environmental impact. Although the focus on voluntary market-based instrument (MBI) type programs is popular in western countries, enforcing regulation is an important, but usually politically unpopular, component of land use policy. The comparative advantage of EMSs differed for the industries studied, but overall there were insufficient market drivers for widespread EMS adoption in Australia. Environmental outcomes could be more effectively achieved by directly funding land management practices which have highest public net benefits. Having a clear and unambiguous management objective for a particular land management policy is more likely to achieve outcomes than having multiple objectives as occurs in a number of international programs currently.     

The use of a multiple criteria decision analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of landscape and habitat enhancement mechanisms: An example from the South Downs

A range of funding schemes and policy instruments exist to effect enhancement of the landscapes and habitats of the UK. While a number of assessments of these mechanisms have been conducted, little research has been undertaken to compare both quantitatively and qualitatively their relative effectiveness across a range of criteria. It is argued that few tools are available for such a multi-faceted evaluation of effectiveness. A form of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) is justified and utilized as a framework in which to evaluate the effectiveness of nine mechanisms in relation to the protection of existing areas of chalk grassland and the creation of new areas in the South Downs of England. These include established schemes, such as the Countryside Stewardship and Environmentally Sensitive Area Schemes, along with other less common mechanisms, for example, land purchase and tender schemes. The steps involved in applying an MCDA to evaluate such mechanisms are identified and the process is described. Quantitative results from the comparison of the effectiveness of different mechanisms are presented, although the broader aim of the paper is that of demonstrating the performance of MCDA as a tool for measuring the effectiveness of mechanisms aimed at landscape and habitat enhancement.     

Same but different: sources of natural resource management advice for lifestyle oriented rural landholders

Amenity migration to attractive and accessible non-metropolitan areas changes social and environmental relations with consequences for natural resource management and landscape composition and trajectories. Lifestyler oriented rural landholders are often cast as a problem for land management and extension. Managers and some researchers see them as a cause of landscape and social fragmentation and report difficulties in engaging such landowners on natural resource management issues and responsibilities. In contrast, limited existing research indicates that lifestylers do join and form networks of personal and other contacts for advice and support in land management. We contribute to this research with a survey of rural landholders in southeastern New South Wales (NSW). We explicitly compare the sources of advice for land management for lifestylers with those of farmers. We focus on the types of sources available to rural landholders in Australian regions and their relative importance to these two landholder groups. We find that lifestylers and farmers are different in their sources of advice but that both prefer personal sources rather than sources such as agencies. We reflect on the significance of the differences for engagement with lifestyle oriented rural landowners and for understanding landscape change.     

Agricultural landscapes as multi-scale public good and the role of the Common Agricultural Policy

During the last 50 years, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has impacted the evolution of European agricultural landscapes by driving changes in land use and farming practices. We propose a typology characterising the scales relevant for agricultural landscapes management and argue that action is required on three scales: (1) a landscape oriented management at the farm level; (2) the coordination of land managers’ actions at the landscape level; and (3) the conservation of the diversity of agricultural landscapes in the EU. We provide evidence that until now the CAP has mainly focused on the first scale. We also illustrate how agricultural policy could encourage coordinated actions at the landscape- and EU-scales. In particular, we propose policy instruments to coordinate actions of individual land owners (e.g. collective bonus in agro-environmental contracts or support to environmental cooperatives (scale 2)). We also analyse how the recognition and transposition of the European Landscape Convention could promote trans-frontier landscape cooperation in order, not only to conserve high-quality rural landscapes, but also to ensure the conservation of the diversity of EU landscapes (scale 3). This paper provides a knowledge base to support an integrated CAP design in the direction of improved landscape management, as an important component of the EU project towards more sustainable agriculture.     

Examining the agricultural producer identity: utilising the collective occupational identity construct to create a typology and profile of rural landholders in Victoria,Australia

Multifunctional rural landscapes are often characterised by contrasting values, land uses and land management practices of rural property owners. It seems these trends are, in part, an expression of rural landholder's identification as farmers. Existing typologies of rural landholders seldom take into account occupational identity. Research discussed in this paper addresses that gap. The objective was to apply the collective occupational identity construct to address the challenges of profiling rural landholders and test its effectiveness at distinguishing between different types of landholders. A 12-item scale was used to explore the extent rural landholders in south-eastern Australia held an agricultural producer identity. Cluster analysis resulted in the creation of four clusters of rural landholders with distinctive characteristics, suggesting the approach can provide researchers with a theoretically sound construct and practitioners with a useful tool as they attempt to better understand and engage rural landholders in sustainable agriculture.     

Integrating spatially referenced social and biophysical data to explore landholder responses to dryland salinity in Australia

Researchers attempting to integrate socio-economic data in watershed planning often draw on nationally collected census data. However, there are critical limitations to the usefulness of this type of data for decision makers operating at the watershed scale. In this paper we demonstrate the relevance of spatially referenced socio-economic data collected using mail surveys to random selections of rural landholders. The issue explored was dryland salinity management in two large watersheds in the Murray-Darling Basin of south-eastern Australia. Contrary to the assumptions underlying public policy in Australia, but consistent with the literature on farmer knowledge, comparisons of expert maps and landholder identified salinity sites suggested that landholders in these watersheds had excellent knowledge of the current extent of salinity on their property. Our research also suggested that salinity education was a sound investment by governments. At the same time, the expert maps failed to predict half of the saline affected sites identified by landholders. Accurately mapping the extent of salinity would seem a first step in addressing this nationally significant land degradation issue.     

Politicisation and professional expertise in the policy of nature conservation

In this paper, the policy of nature conservation in Norway is analysed, with a particular focus on policy development during the last decade moving in the direction of multi-level governance. It is argued that the logic of policy making has shifted from what can be described as 'the politics of expertise' to a process of 'politicisation'. A process of politicisation can be observed both in terms of the nature of arguments being used, and in terms of who the dominant actors are. The subjects of analysis are issues taken up by the political parties in the Parliament, and the paper focuses on two controversial questions. One is about the localisation of conservation areas on private land and the state's liability for compensation. The other is the question of whether the management of conservation areas, and in particular national parks, should be under the control of local government or the state environmental bureaucracy. The analysis documents a process moving in the direction of more complex governance structure involving more actors and broader local participation challenging the role of the professional bureaucracy.     

The future place of recycling in household waste policy: the case of France

To be rightly implemented, an environmental policy ought to set an institutional framework (goals, rules and instruments) which incents decentralised actors to adopt the appropriate range of technologies. In the household waste management policy, the development of valorisation techniques (and particularly recycling) must be supported by convenient instruments and incentives. The paper analyses the problems encountered with the French household waste policy to ensure the takeoff of recycling techniques. At the moment, a rather under-proportioned institutional setting leads to favour the adoption of incineration with energy recovery at the expenses of recycling. This tends to create a structural bias in favour of incineration.     

Towards Sustainable Integrated Watershed Ecosystem Management: A Case Study in Dingxi on the Loess Plateau, China

The Chinese government initiated a massive conservation program called “Grain-for-Green” in 1999 to reduce soil erosion and improve ecosystem function. Implementing practical sustainable development in the loess plateau still remains problematic, particularly in its eco-fragile areas. Here we discussed an approach for sustainable development at the watershed scale by integrating land use suitability, ecosystem services and public participation in the loess hilly area. We linked land use scenario analysis and economic modeling to compare the outcomes of three scenarios, CLU (Current Land Use), GOLU (Grain-production Oriented Land Use) and PSLU (Potential Sustainable Land Use). The results indicated that compared to PSLU, GOLU may provide a higher economic productivity in the short-term, but not in the long-term. CLU ranked lowest in terms of economic benefits and did not meet the daily needs of the local farmers. To reconcile the land use adjustments with farmers’ basic needs, a labor-saving land use strategy is necessary. Since the PSLU scenario assumes that slope cropland should be converted to pastures or orchards, more time may be available for off-farm work and for more public participation in integrated ecosystem management. Financial support to the local farmers for environmental conservation should be modulated in function of their positive contribution to ecosystem management.     

Politicisation and professional expertise in the policy of nature conservation

In this paper, the policy of nature conservation in Norway is analysed, with a particular focus on policy development during the last decade moving in the direction of multi-level governance. It is argued that the logic of policy making has shifted from what can be described as 'the politics of expertise' to a process of 'politicisation'. A process of politicisation can be observed both in terms of the nature of arguments being used, and in terms of who the dominant actors are. The subjects of analysis are issues taken up by the political parties in the Parliament, and the paper focuses on two controversial questions. One is about the localisation of conservation areas on private land and the state's liability for compensation. The other is the question of whether the management of conservation areas, and in particular national parks, should be under the control of local government or the state environmental bureaucracy. The analysis documents a process moving in the direction of more complex governance structure involving more actors and broader local participation challenging the role of the professional bureaucracy.     

Between national soft regulations and strong economic incentives: local climate and energy strategies in Sweden

This paper contributes to the current discussion on whether ‘soft’ regulation actually influences policy outcomes by examining the effects of national policy instruments on municipal climate and energy planning. Sweden has experienced shifts in the incentive context over the last decades complementing soft planning regulations with stringent conditions for getting national economic support to local energy and climate action. We hypothesize that when soft regulations are surrounded by detailed conditions for getting state support, there will be higher degrees of local institutionalization of climate and energy strategies. The importance of economic support as part of national policy is confirmed by evidence from local energy and climate strategies and from interviews with local decision-makers. We also find that specific municipal features such as earlier municipal engagement in national support programs and relevant inter-municipal networks function as drivers for the institutionalization of local action.     

A conjoint analysis of landholder preferences for reward-based land-management contracts in Kapingazi watershed, Eastern Mount Kenya

Unsustainable land-use decisions and agricultural practices have become the key drivers of deteriorating watershed services in developing countries. However, landholders may have little or no incentives to take these impacts into account in their decision-making process. In recent years, reward-based provision of environmental services has emerged as an important market-based incentive for motivating landholders to adopt environmentally friendly land-use changes and agricultural practices. In this regard, for instance, the Pro-Poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA) project has emerged as a large network to support and facilitate reward mechanisms in Africa. However, in many African rural settings, little is known about landholder attitudes and preferences related to the alternative land-management schemes. Using locally identified sets of six key land-management attributes, this paper applies conjoint methods to evaluate landholder preferences towards alternative land-management schemes aimed at enhancing the provision of watershed services in the River Kapingazi catchment in central Kenya. Data were collected from primary sources through focus groups and a questionnaire based conjoint survey. Three conjoint models were used; a traditional conjoint ratings model, a binary logit model, and an ordered logit model. Results from the focus groups indicated that shortage of water for both domestic use and irrigation was perceived as the most acute environmental problem in the area. Deforestation, poor river bank management and agricultural practices were identified as the major causes of the problem. Results from conjoint models show that the three principal attributes influencing landholder's ratings and probability of adopting the proposed land management options were 'size of land area to be committed', 'length of contract period', and 'granting or prohibiting rights to harvest environmental products from the committed land'. Thus, these attributes should be the focal points in designing land-management contract for watershed services in the study area.     

A decision support process to compare riparian revegetation options in Scheu Creek catchment in north Queensland

While riparin vegetation can play a major role in protecting land, water and natural habitat in catchments, there are high costs associated with tree planting and establishment and in diverting land from cropping. The distribution of costs and benefits of riparian revegetation creates conflicts in the objectives of various stakeholder groups. Multicriteria analysis provides an appropriate tool to evaluate alternative riparian revegetation options, and to accommodate the conflicting views of various stakeholder groups. This paper discusses an application of multicriteria analysis in an evaluation of riparian revegetation policy options for Scheu Creek, a small sub-catchment in the Johnstone River catchment in north Queensland, Australia. Clear differences are found in the rankings of revegetation options for different stakeholder groups with respect to environmental, social and economic impacts. Implementation of a revegetation option will involve considerable cost for landholders for the benefits of society. Queensland legislation does not provide a means to require farmers to implement riparian revegetation, hence the need for subsidies, tax incentives and moral suasion.