Participation in the implementation of Natura 2000: A comparative study of six EU member states

The establishment of Natura 2000, the European Union’s network of protected areas, has been a challenging process and has caused a variety of conflicts. These conflicts are related to contradictory stakeholder interests and perceptions, as well as to procedural issues and feelings of exclusion, especially by concerned local land user groups. To prevent further conflict, local participation has been stressed as an important tool to increase the inclusiveness of Natura 2000 and its acceptance among land users. In this paper, we present an analysis of participation practices related to the Natura 2000 implementation processes in six EU member states. Based on material collected from semi-structured interviews and document analysis, we describe the organisational settings of the participatory processes, focusing, among other things, on the type of participants involved, the level and intensity of their involvement, and the goal of participation. In addition, we also describe the local context in which the participation processes have been embedded. Finally, we assess the outcomes of the participatory processes in terms of their impact on forest and nature conservation management practices. Our results show that local participation practices were shaped not just by the Natura 2000 policy, but also by the history of the area, including, for example, earlier conflicts among the local actors. We also show that although the participation process leads to a greater acceptance of the Natura 2000 policy, this does not relate to significant changes in management practices among local actors. These findings, however, do not suggest that participation is irrelevant. Rather, we conclude that participation involves context-dependent, localised learning processes that can only be understood by taking the historical socio-economic and institutional context in which they are situated into account.     

Optimal location of new forests in a suburban region

This paper looks at the optimal location of new forests in a suburban region under area constraints. The methodology takes into account use benefits, non-use benefits (both bequest and existence values), opportunity costs of converting agricultural land, as well as planting and management costs of the new forest. The recreational benefits of new forest sites are estimated using function transfer techniques. We show that the net social benefit of the total afforestation project varies up to a factor 6. The recreational value of a site varies considerably with the available substitutes.     

Using choice experiments to value catchment and estuary health in Tasmania with individual preference heterogeneity*

Choice experiments (CE) have become widespread as an approach to environmental valuation in both Australia and overseas. However, there are few valuation studies that have addressed natural resource management (NRM) changes in Tasmania. Furthermore, few studies have focussed on the estimation of estuary values. The CE study described in this paper aims to analyse community preferences for NRM options in the George catchment, Tasmania. Catchment health attributes were: the length of native riverside vegetation; the number of rare native animal and plant species in the George catchment; and area of healthy seagrass beds in the Georges Bay, which was used as a measure of estuary condition. Mixed logit models with interactions between socio‐economic variables and the choice attributes were estimated to account for systematic and random taste heterogeneity across respondents. Results reveal considerable variation in preferences towards the attributes and show that value estimates are significantly impacted by the way in which we account for preference heterogeneity. Preference heterogeneity thus needs to be considered when estimating community willingness‐to‐pay for environmental changes. This study further shows little responsiveness to the presented changes in estuary seagrass area.     

国家水利风景区非市场经济价值评估——以沂蒙湖国家水利风景区为例

国家水利风景区的建设与管理是实现水生态文明和美丽中国建设的重要内容,对国家水利风景区的保护需要对其非市场经济价值(使用价值和非使用价值)进行评估。运用条件价值评估法的单边界二分式和双边界二分式引导技术,通过问卷调查获取数据,采用logistic、log-logistic、normal和log-normal等4种计量模型,定量评估了沂蒙湖国家水利风景区的使用价值和非使用价值。结果表明:沂蒙湖国家水利风景区具有显著的使用价值和非使用价值; log-logistic和log-normal模型在双边界二分式引导技术下的评估结果更可靠;受访者接受以向非营利性组织捐款的方式参与水利风景区保护。该评估结果可为水利风景区保护政策制定的成本收益分析和相关可持续管理政策的制定提供参考。     

Consumer Valuation of Environmentally Friendly Production Practices in Wines,considering Asymmetric Information and Sensory Effects

Agricultural producers and food marketers are increasingly responding to environmentally friendly cues from consumers, even though privately appropriated values associated with a range of food products commonly rank above their public‐good counterparts. Wine can be considered an ideal product to examine these issues given consumers’ highly subjective sensory preferences towards wine, and a winegrape production process that is relatively intensive in the use of chemical inputs for the control of disease and infection. Semi‐dry Riesling wines made from field research trials following environmentally friendly canopy management practices were utilised in a lab experiment to better understand preferences for environmental attributes in wine. A combined sensory and monetary evaluation framework explicitly considered asymmetric order effects. Empirical results revealed that sensory effects dominate extrinsic environmental attributes. Once consumer willingness to pay (WTP) was conditioned on a wine’s sensory attributes, the addition of environmentally friendly information did not affect their WTP; however, adding sensory information significantly influenced WTP initially based only on environmental attributes. The results confirm the idea that promoting environmentally friendly winegrape production practices would increase demand and lead to higher premiums for the products, but are only sustainable if consumers’ sensory expectations are met on quality.     

Editorial - Value of nature conservation: the good or the context?

The idea of the contingent valuation method for measuring the value of non-marketed goods, proposed by Ciriacy-Wantrup in 1947, found its first application in a study by Davis (1963) at the beginning of 1960's on valuing recreational benefits of forests. Since then, contingent valuation and related methods like choice experiments have become a standard part of forest economists' toolkits. During their history, the pros and the cons of methods of valuing non-marketed benefits of nature have been intensively discussed in the literature. One of the questions, considered also in earlier editorials of this Journal, is what are we actually measuring.Reallocating land from timber production to nature conservation has been a prominent trend in northern Europe and North America during recent decades. On many occasions, this has caused public debates, the spotted owl controversy in western United States being a well known example. In Finland, the implementation of the European Union's nature conservation programme, Natura 2000 Network, at the end of 1990's resulted in a heated public controversy.Public debate and the arguments presented went out of all proportion as compared to the actual proposal. In the Natura 2000 Network proposal, only 5 % of the conserved area were newly protected sites, and newly protected forestland area was 0.15 % of the productive forest land area in Finland. Still, it was claimed that the programme would severely restrict forestry, endanger the profitability of forest industries and violate private forest owners' property rights. The Ministry of Environment received over 14.000 written complaints from private landowners concerning the conservation areas proposed.After the conflict, social scientists have tried to find out what actually went wrong. The most important reason seems to have been the fact that the environmental administration neglected land owners by leaving them completely out of the process of policy planning and designing the areas to be conserved. A contingent valuation survey on Finnish households' willingness to pay for increased conservation in the form of the Natura 2000 Network (Pouta et al. 2002), indicated that the planning process itself had a significant negative effect on Finnish households' welfare. Those respondents who were offered a nature conservation programme similar to Natura 2000 Network, but without the Natura label were willing to pay five times more for the increase than those who received the conservation project within the Natura 2000 Network. According to a choice experiment survey (Li et al. 2001), the proposal would have actually lost a majority vote in Finland.Preliminary results of a survey conducted in year 2002 on increasing biodiversity conservation in forests in Southern Finland indicate much more positive attitudes towards nature conservation (Lehtonen et al. 2002) than the survey on Natura 2000 Network just a few years earlier. One reason for this may be that preferences have changed. Partly, the results may reflect the fact that the later survey is very explicit on the effects of the programme on biodiversity, which seem to matter more than the hectares conserved. However, one reason may also be that this time the planning has not got the bad publicity of Natura 2000 Network, at least not yet.Since Fischhoff and Furby (1988), researchers have been aware of the fact that the context is an important determinant of willingness to pay for public goods. However, at least in Finland, this does not seem to have been common knowledge to environmental groups or policy planners. On the other hand, maybe it is exactly these kinds of features of non-market valuation techniques that cause environmental groups and even many academic natural scientists and ecologists to view the methods and mindset of economists with grave suspicion. Non-market valuation methods seem somehow to dilute the value of nature, which should be preserved whatever the costs.However, disregarding the effects of policy planning, or the perceived property rights of the landowners, is not going to make conservation policies more effective. In fact, if conservation controversies decrease citizens' utility given the proposed level of conservation, they decrease willingness to pay, and make it more difficult to justify conservation measures. Other things being equal, as customers we are more likely to enter a shop with good, reliable service, and a friendly smile can save the day, even if we decide not to make the purchase that time. This is how the human mind works: why should it be any different in the market for environmental goods and services?ReferencesCiriacy-Wantrup SV (1947) Capital returns from soil-conservation practices. Journal of Farm Economics 29: 1181-1196.Davis RK (1963) The value of outdoor recreation: an economic study of the Maine woods Ph. D. thesis, Harvard University. Fischhoff B, and Furby L (1988) Measuring values: a conceptual framework for interpreting transactions with special reference to contingent valuation of visibility. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1: 147-184.Lehtonen E, Kuuluvainen J, Pouta E, Rekola M, and Li C-Z (2002) Stated preferences of the forest conservation in southern Finland. Scandinavian Forest Economics (forthcoming)Pouta E, Rekola M, Kuuluvainen J, Li C-Z, and Tahvonen O (2001) Willingness to pay in different policy-planning methods: Insights into respondents' decision-making processes. Ecological Economics 40: 295-311.Li C-Z, Kuuluvainen J, Pouta E, Rekola M, Tahvonen O (2001) Using choice experiments to value Natura 2000 nature conservation program in Finland. Helsingin yliopisto - University of Helsinki Metsäekonomian laitos - Department of Forest Economics Tutkimusraportteja - Reports 18.     

Future of the hills of Scotland: Stakeholders’ preferences for policy priorities

This paper sets out to assess stakeholders’ preferences for policy priorities for the management of the hill areas of Scotland, using an adaptive conjoint analysis (ACA) method. The method is used to evaluate trade-offs that stakeholders make between policy priorities. A pre-survey was carried out to obtain a large number of defining characteristics of a Scottish hill land system, which were subsequently narrowed down to 20 attributes. A survey was implemented, where a range of stakeholders, who had an interest in the hill and upland areas of Scotland, were asked to select and rank five attributes (out of the 20) that, for them, best described a hill system. They were also asked to describe what constituted both good and poor levels for each of their 5 chosen attributes. A computerised ACA questionnaire was designed, using attributes and levels defined from the previous surveys. Respondents were asked what the policy targets for management choices and options should be in the next 10 years for the Scottish hill areas. Policy simulations were subsequently carried out using the ACA software, to compare stakeholders’ actual preferences with seven different policy profiles, designed to reflect current land use issues and orientations for the Scottish hills.     

Assessment of landscape regeneration of a Natura 2000 site hosting greenhouse farming by using a dashboard of indicators. A case in Sicily through the territorial implementation of a "pilot project" at farm level

Rural landscapes within Natura 2000 network are particularly sensitive to any anthropic action which could cause the compromise of protected habitats. Agriculture, if conducted with unsustainable techniques, could cause loss of biodiversity and landscape quality. The aim of this study is to propose a dashboard of indicators to assess the landscape and environmental benefits achievable by a landscape transformation based on a sustainable management of the agriculture activity in an area characterized by the presence of intensive greenhouse farming. The method was applied in the southern coast of Sicily, where there is the largest SCI (Site of Community Importance) and SPA (Special Protection Area) site of the Region. Here, the dune system was seamlessly occupied by greenhouses, so endangering habitats that guarantee the survival of endemic species, such as the Leopoldia gussonei. The main dimensional, visual and agro-environmental indicators for assessing the landscape and environmental pressure were identified and valued both in the actual state and after the hypothesized conversion. The results show that the proposed intervention would allow a meaningful landscape improvement combined with a considerable reduction of the pollution of the area.     

Preferences over the timing of forest resource use

The objective of this study is to evaluate preferences for time paths of outputs arising from alternative forest management practices. A discrete choice framework using logit and mixed logit models is used to evaluate stated choices by Public Advisory Committee members over attributes regarding inter-temporal forest management options. Results of the study indicate a relatively strong preference for physical sustainability, or even flow choices. However, respondents appear to be more accepting of uneven flows in recreation services than they are of uneven flows of timber harvests. Results also provide yet another illustration of a difference in implied rates of discount over the goods involved (i. e. timber versus recreation). The paper illustrates a mechanism for use in public involvement exercises that may identify inter-temporal preferences over forest management plans and strategies.     

Land cover changes and environmental protection: A study based on transition matrices concerning Sardinia (Italy)

Prevention and mitigation of the progressive spread of artificialization are key goals of environmental protection policies leading to the establishment of protected areas. Artificialization processes can be effectively assessed by analyzing land cover and land use changes, which put in evidence different kinds of processes that spur a decrease in natural areas and an increase in artificial ones. In this article, we first analyze land cover change processes by developing transition matrices using the simplified Land and Ecosystem Account taxonomy, and next we compare and contrast processes that take place in areas characterized by different levels of environmental protection, which we identify as follows: natural protected areas, sites of the European Natura 2000 network, and unprotected areas. We take the Italian island of Sardinia as a case study, since a system of national and regional parks and an extensive Natura 2000 network have been established in this region, and analyze and compare land cover change processes over more than twenty years (i.e. between 1990 and 2012). Our results highlight significant implications for the definition and implementation of planning policies aiming at preventing or mitigating artificialization processes within the island. However, the methodological approach here proposed can be applied in other European regional contexts so as to tailor planning policies to the local characteristics of ongoing land cover transition processes.     

Societal engagement in Natura 2000 sites. A comparative analysis of the policies in three areas in England,Denmark and Germany

Several governments in Europe have explicit ambitions to increase societal engagement in the management of Natura 2000 areas. However, implementing this ambition in practice remains a challenge. This article reviews experiences in three Natura 2000 sites in countries in which local level policies exist to improve societal engagement. By defining the elements of the different policies employed in terms of storylines, instruments, organizational structure and style of interaction, and evaluating to what extent these address societal and governmental arguments for societal involvement, wider lessons are drawn on how governments might tackle this complex issue. The area cases show that a hierarchical governance mode is combined with governance modes that are based more on cooperation, market mechanisms or responsiveness to societal energy in order to achieve societal engagement that goes further than acceptance of nature designations.     

MEASURING NON-USE VALUE OF ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS USING THE CONTINGENT VALUATION METHOD: PROBLEMS OF INFORMATION AND COGNITION AND THE APPLICATION OF COGNITIVE QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN METHODS

Much interest now focuses on the use of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) to assess non-use value of environmental goods. The paper reviews recent literature and highlights particular problems of information provision and respondent knowledge, comprehension and cognition. These must be dealt with by economists in designing CVM surveys for eliciting non-use values. Cognitive Questionnaire Design Methods are presented which invoke concepts from psychology and tools from cognitive survey design (focus groups and verbal reports) to reduce a complex environmental good into a meaningful commodity that can be valued by respondents in a contingent market. This process is illustrated with examples from the authors' own research valuing alternative afforestation programmes.     

Misfits and compliance patterns in the transposition and implementation of the Habitats Directive—four cases

This paper investigates the transposition and implementation of the Habitats Directive in four European member states, namely Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, and Romania, and the role that institutional misfits have played in more or less successful implementation processes. Departing in the ‘Worlds of Compliance’ literature, it also explores if this typology can be useful for understanding the ways member states address institutional adaptation pressures in the implementation steps following the transposition phase. The requirements in the Habitats Directive expanded most member states’ nature conservation frameworks, especially in the obligation to introduce pro-active conservation, and it also laid down a number of steps to be taken for creating the European Natura 2000 network. It was found that the transposition did mostly follow general compliance types, but that these types also helped understand the extent and adequacy of adaptations and changes to the institutional framework in the implementation processes following the directive’s adoption. Implementation challenges were different for different countries. They showed a need to align institutional frameworks for a) Natura 2000 in areas with several existing types of landscape protections and ensuing spatial and institutional overlaps; b) clarifying the roles and responsibilities of various authorities involved in implementation; c) ensuring coordination with the other sectorial policy areas that interact with the Habitats Directive (such as the Nitrate Directive and the Water Framework Directive). It turned out that there could be a need for more flexible and less-top-down European legislation, providing a larger room-for-manoeuvre for integration with domestic approaches.     

Small forest landowner preferences for working forest conservation contract attributes: A case of Washington State,USA

In Washington State, small forest landowners (SFLO) play an important role in maintaining forest cover on the landscape as well as associated ecosystem services. This paper examines landowner preferences for the attributes of working forest conservation contracts (WFCC) using a choice experiment. The attributes examined are contract duration (from 10 years to perpetuity), forest management requirements, and the extent of forestland covered under the contract. We find that contract attributes are valued very differently depending on landowner objectives and harvesting behavior. Landowner characteristics and forestland spatial characteristics including distances to development and large public forestlands were found to significantly influence the likelihood of contract acceptance. While a significant portion of preference heterogeneity remains unobserved, we identify several key sources of landowner preference heterogeneity which allows for a better understanding of which landowners are likely to enroll in voluntary forest conservation contracts and may have implications for improved targeting of contracts.     

Recreation vs conservation in Natura 2000 sites: a spatial multicriteria approach analysis

Because of its high naturalness and biodiversity, Natura 2000 network (N2K) is becoming increasingly important for recreational opportunity, providing benefits in terms of physical and mental health through outdoor experiences. Nature-based tourism (NBT) is tourism based on the natural attractions of an area: the greater the recreation opportunities, the greater the attractiveness to people. N2K sites are suitable places to favour the development of the NBT, as N2K is not a system of strict nature reserves from which all human activities would be excluded. The approach to conservation and sustainable use of N2K areas is much wider, largely centred on people working with nature rather than against it. To do this, a balance between nature-based tourism development and ecological protection should be reached. In this work, we propose the application of spatial multicriteria analysis, in order to analyse multiple conflicting dimensions interacting over time, considering in particular both criteria related to NBT development and ecological protection. The aim of the work was to analyse the opportunities of Nature-based tourism development in N2K in Umbria, one of the Regions of central Italy, which consists of 102 sites. In particular, the work considered the conditions of biodiversity conservation, flora and fauna, as well as the leisure opportunities provided by the sites and the pressure produced by human activities on them. A spatial multicriteria analysis has been carried out to understand the potentiality of the N2K at territorial level. In particular, the proposed methodology would like to support decision makers in the identification of N2K sites in which NBT activities could be improved and developed, in a balanced way according to biodiversity conservation. Results show, according to preferences set by three different kinds of experts, that only a small bunch of N2K sites could be suitable for an increase of the NBT.     

Assessing multiple approaches for modelling land-use conflict potential from participatory mapping data

Spatial social data collected through participatory mapping are increasingly used to assess social dimensions for land use planning and management. However, there has been limited research to evaluate alternative approaches to identify potential land-use conflict. Using data from Queensland, Australia, we applied multiple approaches (land-use preferences, weighted preferences, combined place values and land-use preferences, and value compatibility scoring to identify land-use conflict potential and to assess these methods for four different land uses (residential development, tourism development, mining, and conservation). The performance of these approaches were evaluated using selected reference sites in the study area to determine which spatial attributes and methods were most predictive of conflict potential. Weighted preferences, and combined place values and land-use preferences were most effective for all land use types. The conflict mapping results for mining and conservation were sensitive to the number of place value and land-use preference points available for analysis and the number of individuals participating in the mapping process. To determine the inferential quality of conflict mapping results, we operationalised confidence levels based on the number of unique participants that mapped preferences in a given location. Overall, the highest confidence in mapped results was observed for tourism development, followed by mining, conservation, and residential development. Confidence levels varied across the study area and by reference sites. The findings of this study increase the external validity of preference-based conflict mapping methods while demonstrating a means to assess the inferential quality of conflict mapping results. The generation of confidence levels can assist in the prioritization and allocation of planning resources to places with both high conflict potential and high confidence.     

A hedonic approach to estimating the supply of variety attributes of a subsistence crop

The article extends the household hedonic model by estimating a supply function for variety attributes of a subsistence crop in a developing economy. The model is applied to bananas in Uganda, making use of disaggregated data on variety‐specific farm‐gate banana bunch prices and attributes, while accounting for the semisubsistence nature of banana‐producing households. The article is motivated by the need to understand the attribute trade‐offs made by farmers at the farm gate in light of targeted variety improvement efforts and their impact on banana markets. Whether variety improvement will pay off at the market level requires a more detailed examination of the relative worth of banana attributes within the structure of consumer preferences and production technologies related to bananas in Uganda. The results confirm the importance of consumption and production attributes in selling behavior. Quality and bunch size are found to be complements at the farm gate. Banana bunches that capture a premium at the market will be those that provide bundles of desirable consumption and production attributes simultaneously. By revealing important price–attribute relationships, the findings provide guidance for crop improvement efforts and diversification choices, while taking into account implicit market signals for output attributes.     

Outdoor recreation in various landscapes: Which site characteristics really matter?

This paper investigates the role played by different site characteristics in influencing people's choice of outdoor recreation destinations. Contrary to prior studies, our experiment accounts for a large diversity of eligible landscapes described using photomontages. We use a discrete choice experiment (DCE) proposing respondents to choose among hypothetical destinations described in terms of eight site characteristics. We study the trade-offs made by various profiles of respondents among those site characteristics, resulting in different destination choices. The DCE attributes are spatially explicit to represent recreational patterns in the form of site quality maps using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). We conclude by stressing implications of this research for tourism and land management policy-making in peri-urban environments. Interestingly, preferences for site characteristics vary significantly with the recreational activities that respondents engage in. Hikers and cyclists preferences should be particularly considered in future planning decisions.     

Public evaluation of landscape content and change: Several examples from Europe

This paper considers rural land use by analysing stakeholder values and perceptions concerning various landscape components. The purpose is to show that landscape content and land cover interactions with societal connections should be a base for land use development. The practical goal is to deliberate research tools to quantify public opinions and attitudes, which could form bases for developing of decision support tools. The main research objectives are: (1) to assess existing opinions concerning land use changes and provide a clearer insight into public attitudes to the role of woodlands for an integrated development of the countryside; (2) to place ecological and socio-economic values on inanimate natural components of landscapes; and (3) to assess values and preferences held by land use policy and management experts regarding multiple landscape components and features to assist in decision-making. Through the different levels of importance (values) accorded by the respondents to the integration of nature components in rural landscapes public priorities were identified. The paper develops an understanding of why certain aspects of land use changes are unfavourably viewed by some people and favourably received by others. It suggests some innovative perspectives on the areas of consensus and conflict between people, providing initial information for the selection and evaluation of land use management decisions.