A participatory framework for conservation payments

This paper describes a participatory framework used in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala to analyze the future viability of different conservation measures in a cloud forest area. It presents how in the case of conservation initiatives, participatory developed instruments could provide the incentive for farmers to reinforce or introduce conservation measures in their farming systems to preserve habitats, reduce species disruptions and alleviate poverty. A model's architecture was created with stakeholders of different settings of the region of study. Together, baseline-scenarios and policy-scenarios on land use and income generation were developed. The paper investigates the potential impacts of different policy measures for conservation and poverty reduction through the instrument “payments for environmental services”. Aim was to integrate social, economic and environmental aspects.     

Together we stand,divided we fall? Smallholders' access to political power and their place in Poland's agricultural system

It has long been recognized that agrarian transformation can be seen as an outcome of struggles between politically influential interest groups. At the same time, numerous theoretical arguments suggest that small‐scale farmers are politically weak. Smallholders are commonly believed to comprise a particularly vulnerable group, which has only little influence on the pace and the direction of the ongoing restructuring. One may wonder, however, whether smallholders are able to affect the paths of agrarian development once they solve collective action problem and attain political office. In this paper, we try to improve our understanding in this respect by analysing smallholders in Poland. Our findings suggest that in municipalities in which smallholders had access to political offices, the rate of smallholders' exits from farming was significantly lower than elsewhere.     

中东欧农户对市场经济的适应研究——对波兰、匈牙利、斯洛伐克的比较分析

1989年之后,包括波兰、匈牙利和斯洛伐克在内的中东欧的许多国家在社会、政治、经济领域发生了重大变革。在这个特定的社会经济转型时期,为了了解这些国家的农户如何适应市场经济,在2001年一个由华沙农业大学、斯洛伐克农业大学、匈牙利农业大学以及美国康奈尔大学社会学系所组成的课题组对波兰、匈牙利、斯洛伐克3个国家的11个地区的农户进行了社会调查。数据的收集是以调查问卷的形式进行的,最后共有2933个农户被调查。调查结果输入SPSS软件应用程序之中,建立数据库,并利用模糊聚类法等统计方法,对这些农户的收入、人口统计学方面的变化、经济活动、劳动力资源,以及农户对转型的态度等多项指标进行了分析,从而来了解农户在经济转型时期是如何生存的,并对农户的生活水平以及变化进行了评估,最后根据存在的主要问题,提出了政府职能部门可能采纳的相应的农业宏观发展战略、农业经济政策等。     

Nature conservation for future sustainable shorelines: Lessons from seeking to involve the public

The soft coastline of eastern England is dynamic, with much of it subject to the risk of erosion or flooding. A number of internationally important coastal nature conservation sites are under threat. This paper explores the character and reasoning behind changing coastal management policies and governance practices in England. It reveals how Natural England is tackling these changes, notably with regard to establishing reconstituted nature conservation sites and re-designed coastlines. Such an approach requires the close involvement of policy leaders, agency officers, local maritime authorities and local residents. This paper explains how participatory processes play a critical role in the design of new coastlines that are ecologically and geomorphologically sustainable yet enable local communities to survive and flourish. A case study involving a visioning exercise at Winterton-on-Sea in Norfolk, UK, highlights the many practical difficulties around planning for the uncertain future of internationally important nature conservation sites, and local economies and communities. Future moves toward sustainable coastal alignments will have to involve a wide mix of public and civic bodies, as well as local communities, and will be underpinned by risk-based planning and well-researched adaptation and relocation arrangements.     

Public participation and local environmental planning: Testing factors influencing decision quality and implementation in four case studies from Germany

Public and stakeholder participation in environmental planning is often assumed to enhance effectiveness through improving the environmental quality of decisions and enhancing implementation. We draw on the literature on participatory environmental governance in order to derive key participation-related factors that are hypothesized to impact on decision quality and implementation. We then outline four cases of decision-making processes in local environmental planning in Germany, representing a variety of forms of public participation, and what we suggest can be seen as four different pathways to ‘success’ in participatory planning. The case studies, recounted on the basis of stakeholder interviews and secondary research, are subjected to a cross-case analysis in order to examine the influence of participation in each case. We consider how key participation-related factors played out across the cases, and assess both decision quality and implementation against counterfactual non-participatory, or less-participatory, scenarios. In moving beyond accounts of ‘what happened’, and considering how participation changed the order of things relative to ‘what would have happened’ under different scenarios, the research highlights how very different pathways may lead to ‘success’ in participatory environmental planning from the viewpoint of process organizers and planners sympathetic to environmental issues. We conclude that, given the significance of context and surprises, planners and process organizers must be open to different pathways to the successful conclusion of participatory planning processes.     

Assessing land reallocation decisions during transition in Romania

The post-socialist countries underwent dramatic changes in agricultural land ownership and production system. Former socialist collective farms have been dismantled, rural land has been privatized, and land markets have been formalized. Nevertheless, more than a decade later farming associations still persist in the choices that landowners make in terms of land reallocation despite collective action problems and the availability of leasing-out land as a close substitute. While the decision of farming the land individually has been well understood, there is less research on why landowners join farming associations rather than participate in land transactions. The paper examines this question using household survey data from the two largest agro-regions in Romania. I find that farming associations constitute a good land reallocation option for landowners that are resource constrained but are still willing and able to be engaged in farming. Associations provide security of tenure and capital access, allowing landowners to draw on the benefits of scale economies. Leasing-out is a viable alternative for younger landowners who can engage in non-farming activities and for older landowners with limited farming abilities.     

Adoption of conservation agriculture in Europe: Lessons of the KASSA project

According to KASSA findings, conservation agriculture is less adopted in Europe compared to other adopting regions and, reduced tillage is more common than no-tillage and cover crops. Currently, it is not popularised and it is less researched. The lack of knowledge on conservation agriculture systems and their management and, the absence of dynamic and effective innovation systems make it difficult and socio-economically risky for European farmers to give up ploughing which is a paradigm rooted in their cultural backgrounds. In Norway and Germany the adoption of conservation agriculture has been encouraged and subsidised in order to mitigate soil erosion. In the other European countries the adoption process seems mainly driven by farmers and, the major driving force has been the cost reduction in machinery, fuel and labour saving. Soil and water conservation concerns did not appear as main drivers in the European farmers’ decision to shift or not to conservation agriculture.The shift of European farmers to conservation agriculture is being achieved through a step-by-step attitude, large scale farms are the most adopters. This adoption trend may grow in the future. Indeed, the need to improve farms’ competitiveness, the market globalization and the steady increase of fuel cost will likely contribute to arouse European farmers’ interest in conservation agriculture as it slashes significantly the production costs.Conservation agriculture is not equally suitable for all the European agroecosystems. The need of soil and water conservation in Europe requires anticipating the ongoing process in order to improve its ecological and socio-economic sustainability. Priority would be to define which regions in Europe are the most suitable for conservation agriculture taking into account climate and soil constraints, length of growing period, water availability and quality, erosion hazards and farming conditions. Policy favouring the use of soil cover and profitable crop rotations as management strategies for weed, pest and diseases control will certainly allow developing and disseminating efficient and acceptable conservation agriculture systems.     

中东欧国家绿色发展背景下长江经济带的出口贸易效率研究

长江经济带是我国对外贸易的主要力量,其与中东欧的经贸联系与合作日益密切。为探究中东欧国家绿色发展对长江经济带出口贸易的影响机制及贸易效率,构建随机前沿引力模型,并结合熵权法选择贸易非效率模型中的绿色发展变量,得到变量的作用机制以及双边贸易效率,研究结果表明：中东欧国家绿色发展水平在整体上表现为对长江经济带出口贸易的促进作用,但不同解释变量作用方向不同;长江经济带对中东欧国家的出口贸易效率均值为0.568,国家之间差异明显,多数中东欧国家属于市场扩张型和发展型;波兰、罗马尼亚、捷克的贸易潜力较大,而波黑、摩尔多瓦的贸易潜力值偏小,贸易拓展空间巨大;长江经济带出口贸易效率有明显的空间异质性,上游和下游的出口贸易效率值较高。