Devising Appropriate Policies and Instruments in Support of Private Conservation Areas: Lessons Learned from the Klein Karoo,South Africa

Abstract: The amount of privately conserved land is increasing worldwide. The potential of these areas to contribute to the global conservation of biodiversity is significant, given that statutory protected areas alone will not suffice. Nevertheless, there is still inadequate support for private conservation areas, and further research on appropriate, flexible, and generally applicable incentive measures is necessary. We conducted 25 semistructured interviews with the owners of private conservation areas in the Little Karoo, South Africa, to examine landowner opinions of existing conservation policies and their relationships with the local conservation authority. We also assessed landowner preferences regarding conservation incentive measures. Landowners doubted the conservation authority's capacity to implement its stewardship program and were also discouraged by the bureaucracy of the program. The conservation authority was often viewed negatively, except where landowners had experienced personal contact from conservation staff or where strong social capital had formed among landowners. Landowners did not desire financial rewards for their conservation efforts, but sought recognition of their stewardship role and greater involvement from the conservation authority through personal contact. We conclude that conservation policies for private lands could benefit from the provision of extension services to landowners, promotion of formation of groups of landowners and other stakeholders, and public acknowledgment of the contributions private conservation areas make.     

Negotiating environmental agreements under ratification constraints

We analyze the impact of ratification constraints on the optimal terms of international environmental agreements (IEAs). For this, we combine the literature on IEAs with the public choice literature on two-level games. By also incorporating uncertain preferences of the pivotal voter in the ratification stage, we make several important contributions: (i) we contribute to a more realistic modeling of the temporal structure of international agreements, (ii) we show a surprising, yet intuitive non-monotonic relationship between the optimal commitment level and the variance of ratification decisions, (iii) we identify reasons to expect a larger number of countries to join international negotiations than predicted by most of the coalition formation literature based on a representative agent model. Ratification constraints thereby can improve the welfare gains from stable international agreements.     

利用私人资本进行环保基础设施建设

借助私人资本进行环保基出设施建设已经成为世界性的潮流，我国要解决环保“十五”计划巨大的投资任务，也必须将私人资本引入到环保基础设施中来。引入私人资本进行环保基础设施建设有两条途径，一是成立国家环保基金扶持私营环保企业的发展，二是通过资本市场吸引私人资本进入环保基础设施领域。     

The endowment effect,discounting and the environment

There is a considerable body of evidence showing that our preferences exhibit both reference dependence and loss aversion, a.k.a. the endowment effect. In this paper, we consider the implications of the endowment effect for discounting, with a special focus on discounting future improvements in the environment. We show that the endowment effect modifies the discount rate via (i) an instantaneous endowment effect and (ii) a reference-updating effect. Moreover we show that these two effects often combine to dampen the preference to smooth consumption over time. What this implies for discounting future environmental benefits may then depend critically on whether environmental quality is merely a factor of production of material consumption, or whether it is an amenity. On an increasing path of material consumption, dampened consumption smoothing implies a lower discount rate. But on a declining path of environmental quality and where we derive utility directly from environmental quality, it implies a higher discount rate. On non-monotonic paths, loss aversion specifically can give rise to substantial discontinuities in the discount rate.     

Green,greener, greenest: Eco-label gradation and competition

This paper analyzes two common features of markets in which eco-label programs certify that products are “green”: gradation—single programs offering multiple certification standards (e.g., platinum, gold, silver)—and competition—multiple programs vying to certify to their respective standards. We find that, depending on whether programs are sponsored by industry, environmental groups, or a government, they have strikingly different incentives to grade or compete. Industry sponsors are indifferent about both; environmentalist sponsors optimally grade or compete with other environmentalist sponsors only if consumer preferences for green consumption are skewed in a specific way; and government sponsors׳ decisions depend on the relative importance of private vs. public benefits generated by the green market. We find also that it is no accident that green markets frequently have an environmentalist program competing with an industry one. For each of the cases examined, our analysis is consistent with casual empirical evidence.     

Warm glow from green power: Evidence from Australian electricity consumers

Green electricity products are increasingly made available to consumers in many countries in order to address a number of environmental and social concerns. Most of the literature on this green electricity market focuses on consumers’ characteristics and product attributes that could affect participation. However, the contribution of this environmental consumerism to the overall environmental good does not depend on participation alone. The real impact relies on market participation for green consumers (the proportion of green consumers) combined with the level of green consumption intensity – the commitment levels, or proportion of consumption that is green. We design an online interface that closely mimics the real market decision environment for electricity consumers in Western Australia and use an error component model to analyze consumers’ choice of green electricity products and their commitment levels. We show that product attributes have limited impact on the choice of green products; however, there is still great potential for better participation by improving the design of green electricity programs. When green products are selected, most respondents select the minimum commitment possible, and this is insensitive to the premium being charged on green power, suggesting that we are largely observing a buy-in ‘warm glow’ for carbon mitigation.     

Spatial-econometric analysis of attraction and repulsion of private conservation by public reserves

It is difficult for public agencies to make optimal reserve-site selections without knowing how new public reserves might influence the configuration of private conservation. Private land trusts protect much land in the USA, but little is known about how private groups respond to conservation decisions made by other conservation agents. To fill that gap, we analyze township-level spatial data on conservation in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts to explore relationships between the location of private and public conservation land. Using linear spatial-econometric models and Bayesian spatial probit models, we find evidence that private-protected acres are clustered together in space. In California, it appears that private land conservation is attracted towards places where the government has reserves. In Illinois and Massachusetts, however, it appears that private conservation shifts away from townships with government reserves due to a mixture of spatial repulsion and simple acreage displacement.     

Human preferences for facial masculinity change with relationship type and environmental harshness

In humans (Homo sapiens), sexual dimorphism in face shape has been proposed to be linked to quality in both men and women. Although preferences for high-quality mates might be expected, previous work has suggested that high quality may be associated with decreased investment in partnerships. In line with a trade-off between partner quality and investment, human females have been found to prefer higher levels of masculinity when judging under conditions where the benefits of quality would be maximised and the costs of low investment would be minimised. In this study, we examined facultative preferences for masculinity/femininity under hypothetical high and low environmental harshness in terms of resource availability in which participants were asked to imagine themselves in harsh/safe environments. We demonstrate that environmental harshness influences preferences for sexual dimorphism differently according to whether the relationship is likely to be short or long term. Women prefer less-masculine male faces and men prefer less-feminine female faces for long-term than short-term relationships under conditions of environmental harshness. Such findings are consistent with the idea that high-quality partners may be low investors and suggest that under harsh ecological conditions, both men and women favour a low-quality/high-investment partner for long-term relationships. For short-term relationships, where investment is not an important variable, preferences for sexual dimorphism were similar for the low and high environmental harshness conditions. These results provide experimental evidence that human preferences may be contingent on the environment an individual finds itself inhabiting.     

Those outsiders: How downstream externalities affect public good provision

Some policy problems pit one group?s interests against another?s. One group may determine provision of a project (such as a dam) that benefits group members but hurts others. We introduce a model of such projects. In-group members may contribute to a common fund that benefits them as a public good. Benefits from the project may vary within the group. Provision has negative downstream externalities: contributions hurt agents outside the in-group (“Outsiders”), rendering them anti-social. Many models of social preferences predict that such externalities should reduce provision, although conditional cooperation or a preference for in-group members may counteract this. We test this model with a lab experiment using Outsiders with whom the in-group members have more and less contact. With homogeneous in-group benefits, the presence of negative downstream externalities reduces contributions by half when they have closer contact with Outsiders but not at all when they have had no contact. We introduce a rotating high-return position that allows subjects to trade favors. In this setting, contributions of non-privileged members diminish slightly when faced with the negative externality given closer contact with Outsiders, and not at all with less contact. Reciprocal giving occurs whether or not Outsiders are present.     

Environmental policy and human capital inequality: A matter of life and death

This paper analyzes the economic implications of an environmental policy when we account for the life expectancy of heterogeneous agents. In a framework in which everyone suffers from pollution but health status also depends on individual human capital, we find that the economy may be stuck in a trap in which inequality rises steadily, especially when the initial pollution intensity of production is too high. We emphasize that such inequality is in the long run costly for the economy in terms of health and growth. Therefore, we study whether a tax on pollution associated with an investment in pollution abatement can be used to address this situation. We show that a stricter environmental policy may allow the economy to escape from the inequality trap while enhancing the long-term growth rate when the initial inequality in human capital is not too large.     

九龙江流域规模化养殖环境风险评价

在G IS支持下采用养分收支平衡法对九龙江流域规模化生猪养殖的环境风险进行评价。规模化养殖污染负荷在不同类型养殖场的分配、空间分布规律以及规模化养殖的环境风险评价结果表明:规模化养猪业年产粪尿量达107万t,以小型规模化养殖场产生的污染负荷最高;整体来看,规模化生猪养殖的环境风险不大,但由于养殖场的地理分布集中,造成近郊区域规模化养殖的环境风险极高;由于过多施用化肥,中远郊规模化养殖粪尿未得到合理利用而流失。位于水系附近的养殖场对水体影响较大,根据“福建省畜禽养殖污染防治管理办法”,为减少规模化生猪养殖对九龙江水质的直接威胁,需搬迁主要支流沿岸1 km范围内的规模化养猪场250个。     

九龙江流域规模化养殖环境风险评价

在GIS支持下采用养分收支平衡法对九龙江流域规模化生猪养殖的环境风险进行评价。规模化养殖污染负荷在不同类型养殖场的分配、空间分布规律以及规模化养殖的环境风险评价结果表明：规模化养猪业年产粪尿量达107万t，以小型规模化养殖场产生的污染负荷最高；整体来看，规模化生猪养殖的环境风险不大，但由于养殖场的地理分布集中，造成近郊区域规模化养殖的环境风险极高；由于过多施用化肥，中远郊规模化养殖粪尿未得到合理利用而流失。位于水系附近的养殖场对水体影响较大，根据“福建省畜禽养殖污染防治管理办法”，为减少规模化生猪养殖对九龙江水质的直接威胁，需搬迁主要支流沿岸1km范围内的规模化养猪场250个。     

Exploring co-investments in sustainable land management in the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, not only farmers but also the public and private sector partners are still hesitant to invest in sustainable land management (SLM). This study focuses on the Central Rift Valley and explores the potential for co-investments in SLM, where public and private sector partners support farmers with material, capital, knowledge, etc. A survey revealed current bottlenecks for co-investments and requirements needed to collaboratively invest in SLM. It covered 165 public sector partners (micro-, meso- and macro-level institutions) and 42 private sector partners (banks, exporters and local traders). Results for the public sector show a gap between macro- and micro-/meso-level actors concerning co-investments in SLM. Macro-level institutions do not acknowledge the bottlenecks identified by micro- and meso-level institutions (e.g. lack of accountability, top-down approaches and lack of good leadership). Similarly, opinions on requirements for co-investments in SLM differ considerably, showing that bridging the institutional micro–macro gap is crucial to co-investments. Most factors are related to the wider governance context and to different perceptions among micro- and macro-level actors as to the critical pre-conditions to co-investment in SLM. Improving governance at all institutional levels, capacity building and enhancing a common understanding on barriers to SLM is required. Results for the private sector reveal that economic bottlenecks limit possibilities to co-invest in SLM, and that enabling policies in the public sphere are required to trigger private investments. Hence, the potential for co-investments in SLM is available in Ethiopia at micro- and meso-level and within the private sector, but profound commitment and fundamental policy changes at the macro-level are required to exploit this potential.     

Sustainable consumption: the effects of knowledge,cultural values,environmental advertising,and demographics

As a result of human lifestyles and unsustainable consumption patterns, the environment continues to deteriorate and thus inhibit sustainable development. In order to curb this situation and promote a sustainable economy, one of the solution is to reduce conventional products consumption and shift to green products. Over the past 20 years, marketing managers keenly seek to understand the green market; however, inadequate information on how to promote consumers’ green behavioral intentions is slowing the growth of green markets and becomes a barrier for firms when developing segments and communicating strategies for effective promotion of green products in countries like Malaysia where the trend is fairly new. Therefore, this study attempts to examine the impact of environmental knowledge, cultural values, and environmental advertising and determine the moderating effect of income level, education level, and gender on consumers’ green purchase intentions. A survey was administered, and a total of 405 valid questionnaires were obtained. Structural equation modeling technique was used to evaluate the causal model by using SmartPLS 2.0 software. The finding results suggest that cultural values and environmental advertising are the main influences in building green purchase intentions, while environmental knowledge is not significantly related. The results also indicate that education level and gender have a significant positive moderation effect while income did not. This suggests that green purchase intentions’ motivational factors are greater among highly educated individuals, with females in particular. The discussions and implications of these findings are further elaborated.     

Positive framing does not solve the tragedy of the commons

We investigate whether positive framing increases cooperation in three social dilemmas with slightly different properties: a linear public goods (PG) game, a non-linear PG game, and a common pool resource (CPR) game. Results from our laboratory experiments show that contributions to a linear PG are higher if the externality is framed positively, rather than negatively, corroborating earlier findings by Andreoni (1995). By contrast, we find no such framing effects in the non-linear PG game or the CPR game. In these games, the best response in the material payoffs is to contribute less if others contribute more, counteracting effects of pro-social preferences. Positive framing therefore does not help to solve the tragedy of the commons.     

Can decentralized planning really achieve first-best in the presence of environmental spillovers?

It is generally accepted that decentralized policy choice in the presence of interjurisdictional spillovers is inefficient. Strikingly, Ogawa and Wildasin (2009) find that in a model with heterogenous jurisdictions, interjurisdictional capital flows, and interjurisdictional environmental damage spillovers, decentralized planning outcomes are equivalent to that under a centralized planner. We first show the critical importance of two key assumptions (no retirement of capital, fixed environmental damages per unit of capital) in obtaining this result. Second, we consider a more general model allowing for capital retirement and abatement activities and show that the outcome of a decentralized market generally differs from the solution of a centralized planner?s social welfare-maximizing problem.     

Public expenditure and the environmental management of Brazilian municipalities: a panel data model

Environmental expenditure can be classified as an indicator to measure the efforts of public agents with the environment. Cities and countries seek to understand the determinants of environmental spending over time. This research aims to analyze the variables that influence the environmental spending of Brazilian municipalities between the years 2012 and 2016. Thus, this research helps fill the gap on lack of longitudinal research that involves local contexts in relation to public municipal expenditures on the environment. The research method consists of the panel data model. Data were collected on the environmental expenditures of the municipalities and other variables of 4269 Brazilian municipalities, the collection generated 21,329 observations. The results showed that the municipalities of the state of Amapá had better relative expenditure averages, it was also observed that the municipalities in the Northeast region show the worst results. The municipality of Itamaracá, located in the state of Pernambuco, presented the best percentage of the country, 9.47% of the environmental expenditure in relation to total expenditure. Regarding the results of panel data, the variables revenue, population, density, GDP, and HDI presented significance in all models; the models estimated by fixed effects ensure the consistency of the parameters.     

Discounting for personal and social payments: Patience for others,impatience for ourselves

The market rate of return on private investment is often used as the discount rate when conducting cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of public projects. I argue that the decision to invest pits current consumption against future consumption, both of which accumulate to the private decision maker. Public projects, on the other hand, provide benefits that accrue to society in general. To examine the appropriateness of discount rates based on returns to private investment, this paper considers lab experiments designed to test whether individuals discount personal and social benefits at different rates. Personal benefits are captured through personal monetary payments, while social benefits are captured through anonymous donations to charitable organizations. I jointly elicit time and risk preferences and find that subjects discount charitable contributions at significantly lower rates than personal payments.