Reconciling local control with appropriate scale in Norwegian moose management

In a landscape of fragmented private ownership, the need to coordinate game management across large areas presents challenges for landowners and public agencies alike. This paper describes how a recent reorganization of moose management in Norway achieves landscape-level planning while maintaining a tradition of local management by hunting teams. These two seemingly contradictory imperatives – coordinating wildlife management across large areas while keeping benefits and control in the hands of local resource users – are resolved through a nesting of management institutions, wherein the state serves a regulatory function and mid-level government (the county) serves to facilitate inter-local cooperation. This paper documents how the system is structured and describes the balance of incentives that enable the system to work. Information was gathered via interviews with staff at the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management (now called the Norwegian Environment Agency), with wildlife management officials at the municipal level, with hunters, and from the most recent regulatory documents.     

碳排放权配额管理体系的比较和借鉴

在地方性试点的基础上,我国已在电力行业启动全国性碳排放权交易市场建设。配额管理不仅直接影响参与者的经济利益,还决定着碳排放权交易机制能否成功建立和持续运行。从配额总量设定、地区和企业层面的配额分配、配额的调控和灵活管理机制等角度总结比较了各国碳排放权配额管理制度设计的经验教训,并从五个方面提出了对我国全国性碳交易市场建设的启示。     

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.     

Road and Rail Side Vegetation Management Implications of Habitat Use by Moose Relative to Brush Cutting Season

Plants cut at different times produce resprouts that vary in their nutritional value relative to when they are cut. To determine how vegetation management in transportation (road and rail) corridors at different times of the year could influence browse quality in the years following cutting, and how this could potentially influence encounters between herbivores and vehicles, we undertook a 3-year study. In 2001, at a wildlife viewing area near Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, we established a control area and treatment areas where shrubs and trees that are used as food by moose (Alces alces) were cut at the beginning of June, July, August, September, and October. In the fall, moose were most often observed browsing the resprouts of plants cut in August (years 1 and 2 post-treatment) and September (year 3). Cumulative winter track counts were highest in the uncut control area in the years following cutting. Spring pellet counts revealed that most pellets were deposited in the uncut (years 1 and 2) and August-cut (year 3) areas during winter. With the exception of the first year after cutting, browse removal by moose was highest for plants cut later in the growing season. Overall, our findings suggest that following cutting, plants cut later in the year are selected more often by moose relative to those cut earlier. To reduce browse use of corridor vegetation in areas where concerns for moose-vehicle collisions exist, we recommend that vegetation maintenance activities be conducted in the early summer months of June and July.     

Why keep lions instead of livestock? Assessing wildlife tourism‐based payment for ecosystem services involving herders in the Maasai Mara,Kenya

This paper examines the effects of wildlife tourism‐based payments for ecosystem services (PES) on poverty, wealth inequality and the livelihoods of herders in the Maasai Mara Ecosystem in south‐western Kenya. It uses the case of Olare Orok Conservancy PES programme in which pastoral landowners have agreed to voluntary resettlement and exclusion of livestock grazing from their sub‐divided lands. These lands are set aside for wildlife tourism, in return for direct monetary payments by a coalition of five commercial tourism operators. Results show that, on the positive side, PES is the most equitable income source that promotes income diversification and buffers households from the livestock income declines during periods of severe drought, such as in 2008‐2009. Without accounting for the opportunity costs, the magnitude of the PES cash transfer to households is, on average, sufficient to close the poverty gap. The co‐benefits of PES implementation include the creation of employment opportunities in the conservancy and provision of social services. There is however a need to mitigate the negative effects of PES, including the widening inequality in income between PES and non‐PES households and the leakages resulting from the displacement of settlements and livestock to currently un‐subdivided pastoral commons.     

Attribute-based analysis of hunters’ lease preferences

Understanding of hunter preferences for hunting lease attributes is important to landowners because such knowledge provides key information for managing and marketing fee-hunting in order to maximize revenues. Premised on this insight, we used attribute based modeling to investigate how hunter preferences for potential leases were influenced by lease and hunter-specific attributes. A mail survey of Mississippi licensed hunters provided the necessary data. Estimation results based on McFadden conditional logit regression suggested that lease attributes including game diversity, lease location relative to hunter residence, lease size, lease duration and lease rate influenced willingness to pay for additional units of lease attributes. Depending on the specific levels of these attributes, WTP could vary as much as $5.70 per acre. Of the hunter-specific attributes, age and income significantly influenced hunter decision to buy a lease or opt for status quo. Results of this study should assist landowners in increasing financial returns from fee-hunting endeavors through appropriate changes to their hunting access policies and wildlife management activities in response to hunter preferences regarding lease attributes.     

Stewardship among lifestyle oriented rural landowners

Changes in landownership associated with amenity migration are affecting the demographic, cadastral and ecological conditions of rural landscapes. These changes and concerns about their impacts on natural resource management, including ecological conservation, relate to both the structural consequences of landownership change, land subdivision and to the motivations, management ability and attitudes of lifestyle oriented rural landowners. Based on an Australian case study near Sydney, NSW, this paper examines the motivations and practices of such landowners, assesses potential consequences for vegetation and characterises the landowners according to three stewardship types.     

Striving for sustainable wildlife management: the case of Kilombero Game Controlled Area,Tanzania

The sustainability of wildlife resources in Africa is threatened by poaching for trophies and meat as well as changes in land use. In order to motivate local people for sustainable wildlife management, efforts to transfer decision-making power as well as benefits from central to local level have been made in several countries. Such efforts have not yet been seen in Kilombero Game Controlled Area, which is the area covered by the present study. The paper documents the importance of wildlife to local people, explores local people's perceptions on wildlife management and identifies constraints to sustainable wildlife management. A total of 177 household interviews in 5 villages and 129 interviews of pupils in schools have been conducted. The majority of pupils reported that their latest meal of meat was from a wild animal, and the most common species was buffalo. Apart from availability of cheap wildlife meat, advantages from living close to wildlife include the use of various parts of animals for, e.g. medical and ritual uses, and various plant products from wildlife habitats. Disadvantages include damages to crops, predation on livestock, and injuries to humans. The estimated loss of yield due to raiding by wildlife amounted to 21.9 and 47.8% of the harvest of rice and maize, respectively. Traditional wildlife management in Kilombero includes few rules to avoid resource depletion, because depletion has traditionally not been a problem due to low hunting technology and low human population. Government management includes strict rules, with hunting quotas as the main instrument, but the government has failed to enforce the rules. Ongoing discussions on new approaches to wildlife management like co-management and community-based management were largely unknown to the villagers in the area. Both poaching and agricultural expansion threaten the sustainability of Kilombero Game Controlled Area. It is suggested that transfers of decision-making power and benefits to local people is necessary in order to achieve sustainable management.     

The geography of conflict between elk and agricultural values in the Cypress Hills, Canada

Complex ecological issues like depredation and its management are determined by multiple factors acting at more than one scale and are interlinked with complex human social and economic behaviour. Depredation by wild herbivores can be a major obstacle to agricultural community support for wildlife conservation. For three decades, crop and fence damage, competition with livestock for native rangeland and tame pasture, and depredation of stored feed by elk (Cervus elaphus canadensis) have been the cause of conflict with agricultural producers in the Cypress Hills, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Tolerance of elk presence on private lands is low because few benefits accrue to private landowners; rather they largely perceive elk as a public resource produced at their expense. Government management actions have focused on abatement inputs (e.g., population reduction; fencing) and compensation, but incentives to alter land use patterns (crop choice and location) in response to damages have not been considered. Nor has there been information on spatial structure of the elk population that would allow targeted management actions instead of attempting to manage the entire population. In this study we analysed the spatial structure of the Cypress Hills elk population, the distribution of the elk harvest in relation to agricultural conflicts, developed models of the spatial patterns of conflict fields, and evaluated compensation patterns for damage by wild herbivores. We propose modifications to current abatement and compensation programs and discuss alternative approaches involving changes to agricultural land use patterns that may reduce the intensity of conflicts with elk, and increase the acceptance capacity of landowners.     

Prairie dog poisoning in northern Great Plains: An analysis of programs and policies

This paper describes the programs and policies regarding prairie dog control in the northern Great Plains states of Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The poisoning programs of federal and state agencies are described, along with the statutes and legal mandates that shape agency management of prairie dogs. Current policies on National Grasslands and other federal lands typically limit prairie dogs to small percentages of available potential habitat, to the detriment of prairie dogs and associated species. State programs to assist landowners in prairie dog control differ greatly, employing cost-share incentives (Wyoming) and regulatory fines (South Dakota) to encourage the poisoning of prairie dogs. Prairie dog control is not actively funded or practiced by state or county agencies in Montana. We document federal and state involvement in more than 1 million acres of prairie dog poisoning in the study area during 1978–1992. In combination with undocumented poisoning by private landowners, plague, and shooting, prairie dogs may be experiencing net regional declines, contributing to the disintegration of the prairie dog ecosystem. We recommend that Animal Damage Control operations concerning prairie dogs be terminated, on the basis that they duplicate state programs and are at cross purposes with federal wildlife management programs that seek to perpetuate and/or recover wildlife species that depend on the prairie dog ecosystem. We further recommend that federal range improvement funds be offered as subsidies for the integration of prairie dogs in range management, as opposed to funding prairie dog eradication programs.     

The Wild Kangaroo Industry: Developing the Potential for Sustainability

Wildlife resources the world over have long been subject to harvest and management. As wildlife uses have grown, so too have the need and desire to ensure their sustainability. This new context of sustainability presents opportunities to merge ecological, economic and social elements to foster development. This paper presents the management and harvesting of wild kangaroos as an example of the potentially sustainable use of a natural resource. Some comparisons are drawn between the use of other wild living resources, deer in Europe and crayfish in Western Australia. However, sustainability of kangaroo species and the industry is not just a matter of market economics and ecology, it must also be socially sustainable. The public policy instrument of a statutory advisory board with a marketing function is proposed in order to integrate the cultural and social aspects of kangaroo management with the economic and ecological aspects. Through such integration, full sustainability of a wild resource then might be achieved.     

A multiobjective programming framework for integrating timber and wildlife management

This article describes a multiobjective programming (MOP) framework for integrating timber and wildlife management. The framework allows for the simultaneous consideration of timber and wildlife objectives. Management strategies are defined in terms of management regimes consisting of a time-identified and site-specific schedule of activities. A MOP model is described and demonstrated using an integrated planning example involving a forest managed for timber production and a variety of wildlife species.     

Comanagement of wildlife corridors: the case for citizen participation in the Algonquin to Adirondack proposal

The debate between top-down and bottom-up planning has recently re-emerged in environmental management. Many commentators agree on the merits of comanagement, in which affected citizens and professional managers share responsibility for planning. Nevertheless, the manifold advantages of comanagement have not always been fully appreciated in environmental planning. For example, a group representing NGOs and academic institutions recently proposed an ecological corridor linking Algonquin Provincial Park in southern Ontario to the Adirondack Park in northern New York. This corridor, known as A2A, was designed to encourage the migration of wolves and other wildlife between the parks. Much of the land in A2A is private property. A survey of households, randomly scattered throughout the United States portion of the corridor, revealed that affected landowners had little knowledge of the proposal and no contact with its advocates. Many respondents were farmers who utilized land for livelihood. Other landowners enjoyed property for a variety of recreational purposes. Regardless of use, survey participants placed high value on the importance of conserving biological diversity. They also expressed great distrust toward restrictions that might be placed on their activities. In general, respondents felt very unsure about A2A, and they were uncertain about personal involvement in the planning process. Certain landowners indicated a willingness to have their land be included in an ecological corridor, despite not knowing about it before the survey was administered. These results suggest that A2A proponents have little to lose and much to gain by disseminating information locally and by embracing comanagement for further formulation of this plan.     

Appreciation, Use, and Management of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in California’s Working Landscapes

"Working landscapes" is the concept of fostering effective ecosystem stewardship and conservation through active human presence and management and integrating livestock, crop, and timber production with the provision of a broad range of ecosystem services at the landscape scale. Based on a statewide survey of private landowners of "working" forests and rangelands in California, we investigated whether owners who are engaged in commercial livestock or timber production appreciate and manage biodiversity and ecosystem services on their land in different ways than purely residential owners. Both specific uses and management practices, as well as underlying attitudes and motivations toward biodiversity and ecosystem services, were assessed. Correlation analysis showed one bundle of ecosystem goods and services (e.g., livestock, timber, crops, and housing) that is supported by some landowners at the community level. Another closely correlated bundle of biodiversity and ecosystem services includes recreation, hunting/fishing, wildlife habitat, and fire prevention. Producers were more likely to ally with the first bundle and residential owners with the second. The survey further confirmed that cultural ecosystem services and quality-of-life aspects are among the primary amenities that motivate forest and rangeland ownership regardless of ownership type. To live near natural beauty was the most important motive for both landowner groups. Producers were much more active in management for habitat improvement and other environmental goals than residential owners. As the number of production-oriented owners decreases, developing strategies for encouraging environment-positive management by all types of landowners is crucial.     

Explaining land management decisions to understand local landscape functions and change. Some insights from Tuscany

Structural changes in agriculture and urbanisation affect land management regimes and local landscape functions. Studying the new functions of land is as relevant as the owners' land management decisions, the replacement of farming with different activities and land uses may impact not only the local landscape's functions but also, in the long run, its structure and the environment. Drawing on a detailed case study in Tuscany based on qualitative interviews with landowners and on the understanding of the socio-economic context, this article analyses landowners' attitudes towards land property and farming in relation to individual motives as well as to local and supra-local contexts. Five relational typologies of landowners are identified: pure farmers, amenity farmers, land developers, land-with-house owners and house-with-land owners. Diverse trends – such as particular farmers’ attitudes towards land development, or the emerging role of non-professional farmers in land management – are found to raise challenges related to rural land planning and management.     

Public acquisition versus private stewardship for wetland protection: an evaluation of the St Lawrence valley national wildlife refuge,USA

Private stewardship can be an efficacious strategy for wetland protection in areas not subject to development pressure, provided landowners are environmentally conscious and a safety net of regulations has been enacted. Public acquisition is better directed toward areas undergoing rapid land‐use change. The St Lawrence Valley National Wildlife Refuge proposed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service was ill‐advised, because wetlands are not being converted to other uses, landowners are engaging practices that promote and enhance wildlife, and wetlands are protected from serious losses by state regulations. A less costly and less contentious role for governmental agencies in such situations is to initiate and support activities of private landowners.     

A factor analytic study of attitudinal structure and its impact on rural landowners' access policies

Previous research has shown that rural landowners' hunter access policies are determined in large part by their attitudes towards hunters, legal liability, conservation, and economic incentives. The results of this study support this research and indicate that East Texas, USA, landowners' decisions to allow or restrict access are based, in part, on attitudes toward hunter behavior, hunting as a social activity, leasing as a management practice, and a perceived obligation toward wildlife stewardship. Attitude-based profiles of landowners who adopted one of four access policies are compared.     

A LAW AND ECONOMICS APPROACH TO RESOLVING RESERVOIR SEDIMENT MANAGEMENT CONFLICTS1

The loss of the world's reservoir capacity to sedimentation can be mitigated by altering dam operations to release sediment downstream. However, legal uncertainty regarding whether dam owners are liable for damages to surrounding landowners due to altered operations provides a significant disincentive for sustainable sediment management. Past work recommends that courts apply a “rule of reasonableness” in assessing liability: dam owners should be held liable for damages only if they act unreasonably in altering operations, and surrounding landowners should take reasonable measures to mitigate foreseeable damage. Based on past cases, judicial determinations of reasonable reservoir management and reasonable precautionary measures by landowners are generally highly speculative, controversial, and based on limited information. Courts can ease the future burden of making these difficult determinations with rulings that create economic incentives for parties to act reasonably. For example, courts might entitle landowners to be free from sediment related damages, and protect the entitlement with a liability rule. This gives dam owners an economic incentive to release sediment only if the benefits of doing so outweigh court ordered damages to landowners. Past judicial decisions are largely consistent with this legal regime.     

Wildlife resource utilisation at Moremi Game Reserve and Khwai community area in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

This paper uses the concept of sustainable development to examine the utilisation of wildlife resources at Moremi Game Reserve (MGR) and Khwai community area (NG 18/19) in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Using both secondary and primary data sources, results show that the establishment of MGR in 1963 led to the displacement of Khwai residents from their land; affected Basarwa's hunting and gathering economy; marked the beginning of resource conflicts between Khwai residents and wildlife managers; and, led to the development of negative attitudes of Khwai residents towards wildlife conservation. Since the late 1980s, a predominantly foreign owned tourism industry developed in and around MGR, however, Khwai residents derive insignificant benefits from it and hence resource conflicts increased. In an attempt to address problems of resource conflicts and promote sustainable wildlife utilisation, the Botswana Government adopted the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme, which started operating at Khwai village in 2000. The CBNRM programme promotes local participation in natural resource management and rural development through tourism. It is beginning to have benefits to Khwai residents such as income generation, employment opportunities and local participation in wildlife management. These benefits from CBNRM are thus having an impact in the development of positive attitudes of Khwai residents towards wildlife conservation and tourism development. This paper argues that if extended to MGR, CBNRM has the potential of minimising wildlife conflicts between Khwai residents and the wildlife-tourism sectors. This approach may in the process promote the sustainable wildlife use in and around MGR.     

Contributions of Private Landowners to the Conservation of the Gopher Tortoise (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Gopherus polyphemus</Emphasis>)

Private landowners play a pivotal role in determining whether or not rare species persist in regions where privately owned land is extensive. The range of the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) is confined to the Southeastern U.S., a region predominantly under private ownership, and thus the status of this species is largely dependent upon land management decisions made by private landowners. We sent an anonymous mail survey to 2,584 individuals to examine factors affecting gopher tortoise occurrence on private lands in Mississippi (adjusted response rate of 23%). Few respondents (19%) reported currently having tortoises on their property, although many had them in the past (30%). Tortoises were persisting primarily on larger properties with longleaf pine that were not managed chiefly for timber production. In general, respondents were largely unaware of habitat requirements of tortoises or effects of various land management practices on them, and few reported using management techniques that benefit tortoises, such as prescribed burning. Most respondents (57%) knew of wildlife incentive programs, but were hesitant to enroll because they did not want to commit to managing their property in a particular manner (34%). We suggest actions that could improve the likelihood of tortoise persistence in this region, as well as changes that could be made to incentive programs to increase landowner participation. These suggestions should be relevant to the conservation of other rare species on private lands in other regions.