Outcomes and Determinants of Success of a Performance Payment Scheme for Carnivore Conservation

This paper presents a first empirical assessment of the outcomes and determinants of carnivore conservation success in Sweden’s pioneer performance payment scheme. Carnivores in northern Sweden depend on reindeer as prey which causes conflicts with reindeer herders. As compensation and conservation incentive, the government issues performance payments to reindeer herder villages based on the number of carnivore offspring certified on their land. The villages decide on the internal use and distribution of the payments. In the literature, it is generally assumed that benefit distribution rules are exogenously given. We extend the literature by developing a model to investigate such rules as endogenous decision. We hypothesize that conservation success is determined by natural geographical factors and each village’s capability to engage in collective action to manage the internal payments so that conserving rather than hunting carnivores becomes villagers’ optimal strategy. The hypotheses developed are tested with empirical village and household-level data from Sweden. The paper concludes that if limited hunting is legal, conservation success strongly depends on villages’ potential for collective action and their payment distribution rule. In cases without legal hunting, performance payments together with penalties on poaching provide sufficient incentives for herders to refrain from illicit hunting. Furthermore, the data reveals that villages’ group size has a direct negative effect on conservation outcomes as predicted by collective action theory. However, there is also an indirect effect which positively impacts conservation outcomes through the payment distribution rule. This result, at least in part, revises the general collective action hypothesis on purely negative effects of group size and highlights the importance of investigating factors driving groups’ internal benefit distribution rules.Conservation performance payments; wildlife conservation; collective action; empirical policy assessment; Sweden

Outcomes and Determinants of Success of a Performance Payment Scheme for Carnivore Conservation

This paper presents a first empirical assessment of carnivore conservation under a performance payment scheme. The Swedish government issues payments to reindeer herder villages based on the number of carnivore offspring certified on their pastures. The villages decide on the internal use and distribution of the payments. It is generally assumed that benefit distribution rules are exogenously given. We develop a model to investigate such rules as endogenous decision. The empirical data reveals that villages’ group size has a direct negative effect on conservation outcomes. However, there is also an indirect positive effect which impacts conservation outcomes through the benefit distribution rule. This result revises the general collective action hypothesis on purely negative effects of group size. The paper concludes that if limited hunting is legal, conservation success strongly depends on villages’ potential for collective action and the benefit distribution rule they choose.Conservation performance payments, Wildlife conservation, Collective action, Empirical policy assessment, Sweden, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Comparing Conventional and New Policy Approaches for Carnivore Conservation – Theoretical Results and Application to Tiger Conservation

New policy approaches to facilitate the co-existence of wildlife and livestock are increasingly being sought-after as human sprawl increases and carnivore populations decrease. In this paper, models are developed to assess how alternative policy approaches can provide a livestock herder with incentives to sustain the socially optimal carnivore population. The wellestablished policy ex-post compensation is analyzed and compared to the innovative conservation performance payment approach. An empirical analysis of the model with data from tiger-livestock conflicts in India is presented.

Kartierte Risikokonflikte als Instrument reflexiver Wissenspolitik

Die mit der Entwicklung neuer Technologien einher gehende neue Qualität von Risiken erfordert ein Überdenken der Strategien, die den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit diesen Risiken betreffen. Die besondere systemische Qualität dieser Risiken führt zur Notwendigkeit einer veränderten Risikopolitik sowie Risikokommunikation. Basierend auf den Konzepten der systemischen Risiken und der reflexiven Wissenspolitik stellen wir eine so genannte "Risiko-Kartierung" als ein neues, internetbasiertes Werkzeug für Risikokommunikation vor. Der im Rahmen des Projektes "Risikokonflikte kartiert" entwickelte Prototyp möchte mittels einer ungewöhnlichen methodischen Vorgehensweise bei der Analyse und visuellen Aufbereitung von Risikokonflikten einen veränderten gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit diesen anstoßen. Die Aufbereitung erfolgt exemplarisch anhand zweier Fallstudien, nämlich Nahrungsergänzungsmittel und nanoskalige Materialien.Visualisierung, Risikodiskurs, systemische Risiken, reflexive Wissenspolitik, Nahrungsergänzungsmittel, Nanotechnologie

Variations of the organic matter composition in the sea surface microlayer: A comparison between open ocean and upwelling sites off the Peruvian coast.

The sea surface microlayer (SML) is the thin boundary layer between the ocean and the atmosphere, making it important for air-sea exchange processes. However, little is known about what controls organic matter composition in the SML. In particular, there are only few studies available on the differences of the SML of various oceanic systems. Here, we compared the organic matter and neuston species composition in the SML and the underlying water (ULW) at 11 stations with varying distance from the coast in the Peruvian upwelling regime, a system with high emissions of climate relevant trace gases, such as N2O and CO2. In the open ocean, organic carbon, and amino acids were highly enriched in the SML compared to the ULW. The enrichment decreased at the coastal stations and vanished in the upwelling regime. At the same time, the degradation of organic matter increased from the open ocean to the upwelling stations. This suggests that in the open ocean, upward transport processes or new production of organic matter within the SML are faster than degradation processes. Phytoplankton was generally not enriched in the SML, one group though, the Trichodesmium-like TrL (possibly containing Trichodesmium), were enriched in the open ocean but not in the upwelling region indicating that they find a favorable habitat in the open ocean SML. Our data show that the SML is a distinct habitat; its composition is more similar among different systems than between SML and ULW of a single station. Generally the enrichment of organic matter is assumed to be reduced when encountering low primary production and high wind speeds. However, our study shows the highest enrichments of organic matter in the open ocean which had the lowest primary production and the highest wind speeds

Differenzierungsprozesse im Öko-Landbau: Differenzierung von Konzepten der Naturnutzung?

"Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojektes 'Von der Agrarwende zur Konsumwende?' wurde unter anderem der Frage nachgegangen, wie ökologisch wirtschaftende Landwirte mit den aktuellen Veränderungen der agrarpolitischen und marktlichen Rahmenbedingungen umgehen. Orientiert an den Ergebnissen vergleichbarer aktueller Untersuchungen wurde davon ausgegangen, dass sowohl die Entscheidung zur Umstellung auf ökologische Wirtschaftsweise als auch das Handeln des einzelnen Landwirts von verschiedensten, eng miteinander verknüpften Faktoren abhängt, unter anderem von der betrieblichen Faktorausstattung, persönlichen Zielsetzungen, Werthaltungen und dem sozialen Umfeld. Die Untersuchung wurde als qualitative Studie durchgeführt, die nach dem Kontrastprinzip zwei landwirtschaftlich sehr unterschiedlich strukturierte Regionen miteinander verglich: Bayern und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Insgesamt wurden 101 leitfadengestützte Interviews mit Bio-Landwirten durchgeführt. Ein zentrales Ergebnis der Untersuchung ist, dass sich die Ziele und Strategien von Öko-Landwirten zunehmend ausdifferenzieren. Insgesamt konnten elf unterschiedliche Typen identifiziert werden. Gleichzeitig scheint sich - aufgrund der veränderten agrarpolitischen Rahmenbedingungen (EU-Agrarreform) - aber auch die Praxis der konventionellen Landwirte zunehmend auszudifferenzieren. Insgesamt verwischen sich damit die ursprünglich klaren Grenzen zwischen Öko-Landbau und konventioneller Landwirtschaft. Zu vermuten ist, dass damit auch eine Diversifizierung der mit den jeweiligen Praktiken bisher verbundenen 'Philosophien' der Naturnutzung einhergeht. Ausgehend von den Untersuchungsergebnissen soll in diesem Beitrag deshalb der Frage nachgegangen werden, inwieweit die traditionelle Gegenüberstellung von ganzheitlichen, wertbestimmten versus produktivistischen Paradigmen des Naturbezugs noch eine zutreffende Beschreibung der (zumindest unter Landwirten) vorfindbaren Orientierungen darstellt. Die empirischen Befunde verweisen eher darauf, dass sich auch im Öko-Sektor neue 'Patchwork'-Muster verbreiten. Theoretisch ließe sich dies zwanglos mit Konzepten erklären, die einen engen Zusammenhang zwischen Naturvorstellungen und konkreten, alltäglichen Praktiken der Naturnutzung postulieren (bspw. Mcnaghten & Urry)." (Autorenreferat

Comparing Conventional and New Policy Approaches for Carnivore Conservation: Theoretical Results and Application to Tiger Conservation

New policy approaches to facilitate the co-existence of wildlife and livestock are needed for situations where predation incidents greatly impact households' income and retaliatory killing threatens endangered carnivore species' survival. In this paper, models are developed to assess how two alternative policy approaches impact a herder's decisions on carnivore hunting and livestock protection. We find that while the well-established ex-post compensation policy induces suboptimal livestock protection it can generate sufficient incentives for the herder to refrain from hunting so that the carnivore population reaches its socially optimal level. Performance payments are proposed as alternative policy. They are found not to distort livestock protection incentives and can also help achieve a socially optimal carnivore population level. Which of the two scheme types gives rise to less cost is ambiguous. An empirical analysis of the model with data from tiger-livestock conflicts in India is presente

Ethical TradeForum: Fairness and social responsibility trade concepts in the North

Papers presented at the BioFach 2009 Congress; the session was moderated by Otto Schmid of the Research Institute of Organic Agricultur

Ökologischer Landbau zwischen Vision und Realität

Der Bio-Sektor und seine Akteure scheinen in ihren Strukturen, Funktions- und Handlungsweisen der konventionellen Landwirtschaft immer ähnlicher zu werden. Die daraus resultierenden Effekte und notwendigen Maßnahmen wurden auf der 8.Wissenschaftstagung in Kassel erörtert