Measuring environmental incomes beyond standard national and ecosystem accounting frameworks: testing and comparing the agroforestry Accounting System in a holm oak dehesa case study in Andalusia-Spain

The standard System of National Accounts (SNA) omits the costs of the environmental inputs from nature and the environmental fixed asset degradation from the national/sub-national natural working landscapes. The United Nations Statistic Division (UNSD) is currently drafting the standardization of the Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (EEA), as part of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). The EEA- aims to mitigate some of the limitations of the SNA by extending the concept of economic activity and explicitly incorporating ecosystem services and environmental assets provided by nature in the estimates of net value added, adjusted according to the costs of the environmental inputs consumed and the environmental fixed asset degradations of ecosystem. However, the NVAad proposed in the ongoing draft of the EEA is inconsistent in that it omits the manufactured costs of the public economic activities of the new government institutional sub-sector of the ecosystem trustee. In addition, the ongoing methodological guidelines of the EEA do not propose to estimate the environmental income. This implies that there is not a single indicator that integrates the ecosystem services obtained and the evolution of the environmental assets in the natural working landscapes in which the private and public activities are valued. The objective of this research is to discuss conceptually and compare the measurements of ecosystem services and environmental incomes in the extended Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS), and in refined versions of the official SNA and the ongoing EEA methodologies, through a case study of privately-owned holm oak dehesas working landscapes in Andalusia-Spain. This comparison shows that the refined SNA and the refined EEA in their current state of development do not allow the complete visualization of the environmental income contribution to the total income of the natural working landscapes. We also discuss the advances provided by the AAS extended accounting methodology that would be relevant for the EEA next improvements.     

生态系统的商品和服务属性及其提供的环境收入

生态系统具有商品和服务的属性,人类的生产和生活依赖于这些商品和服务。生态系统提供的商品和服务所体现的价值是人类从系统中获取的环境收入。农村家庭从公共共享资源中以不同途径获得的环境收入,用于家庭成员消费和商品交换。公共资源支撑力的衰退,迫使人们加强生态系统支撑能力建设。     

环境管理与中国能源资源的开发利用

文章对我国能源资源开发利用的现状及对环境的负面影响进行了全面的分析 ,指出能源资源的开发利用对环境的负面影响除了自然的、科学技术方面的原因外 ,大多是管理上的问题 ,认为通过加强环境管理 ,很多问题可以得到解决。在此基础上提出了能源资源环境管理的概念、内容和原则。     

Total income and ecosystem service sustainability index: Accounting applications to holm oak dehesa case study in Andalusia-Spain

This research develops the novel concept of an economic ecosystem service sustainability index from the perspective of total income theory, and presents its empirical application at the spatial unit scale of the agroforestry farm. This paper compares the results accrued from applying the refined standard System of National Accounts (rSNA) and the authors’ Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS). The AAS extends the rSNA to capture economic activities without manufactured production costs and substitutes the production cost valuations for exchange values revealed/stated by consumer willingness to pay for consumption of final products without market prices, the aim being to provide more comprehensive figures for total and environmental incomes of the agroforestry farms. Both accounting frameworks are applied to a case study of sixteen large, non-industrial, privately-owned holm oak dehesas (agroforestry farms) in Andalusia-Spain. This dehesa application provides estimates for the economic ecosystem service, total income factorial allocation, total capital and economic ecosystem service sustainability index for the aggregate and individual economic activities of the dehesa, distributed between accounts for the farmer and government institutional sector economic activities. The AAS explicit measurements of the hidden rSNA ecosystem services and environmental incomes of the dehesa allow us to further our scientific understanding of the current and future contributions of environmental income from nature to the total income of society as well as to provide information to the policy makers so that action can be taken to mitigate the depletion and degradation of environmental assets. This dehesa application reveals that environmental income measured by the AAS accounts for 67 % of total income in 2010. The dehesa AAS and rSNA ecosystem services share 34 % and 26 % of total product consumptions, respectively. Coupled with the AAS economic ecosystem service sustainability index of 0.5 and the rSNA economic ecosystem service sustainability index of 0.2, these figures indicate total product over-consumption in 2010. The dehesa case study shows that the AAS ecosystem services and environmental incomes are 2.5 and 8.4 times higher than those of the rSNA, respectively. Once the theoretic robustness of non-market product consumption simulated transaction value is accepted, as in the AAS methodology, the expected official economic ecosystem accounting framework will mainly depend on its ongoing standardization by the United Nations Statistical Division and implementation by individual governments. Thus, the challenge of standardizing and implementing such a framework is more closely linked to governmental policy measures than to the current scientific weakness of non-market product consumption valuations.     

Ecosystem impacts of pesticide reductions through Bt cotton adoption

This article examines the ecosystem impacts of transgenic Bt cotton technology resulting from reduced chemical pesticide use. Employing unique panel data from smallholder farmers in India, negative environmental and health effects of pesticide use are quantified with the environmental impact quotient (EIQ), with and without Bt technology. An environmentally sensitive dynamic production function is estimated, treating the environmental risk of pesticide toxicity as an undesirable output in the production process. Negative externalities are significantly lower in Bt than in conventional cotton. The reduction in EIQ through Bt technology adoption has increased from 39 per cent during 2002–2004 to 68 per cent during 2006–2008. Bt adoption has also contributed to higher environmental efficiency. Environmental efficiency is influenced by the quality of Bt technology: high‐quality Bt seeds are associated with higher environmental efficiency than lower‐quality seeds.     

资源环境约束、制度创新与海洋产业可持续发展——基于海洋经济管理体制和海洋生态补偿机制的分析

资源环境约束已经严重影响到了海洋产业的可持续发展,而制度创新是实现其可持续发展的重要对策.从委托代理理论的角度而言,要在海洋经济管理中对不同的代理人进行恰当的授权并从委托人的角度对代理人之间的利益关系进行协调,这实质上是海洋经济管理体制中的一个制度创新过程.海洋生态系统具有公共产品的性质,当其遭受破坏时需要通过建立海洋生态补偿机制对其进行“修复”,这是为实现海洋产业可持续发展所实施的另一项制度创新.     

Semi‐Subsistence Farming: An Elusive Concept Posing Thorny Policy Questions

The massive expansion of semi‐subsistence farming in the European Union after the Eastern enlargements poses a real challenge to rural development. The problems of semi‐subsistence farms are low cash incomes and incidence of poverty, sub‐optimal use of land and labour, a lack of capital and poor contribution to rural growth. However, they play an important welfare function in some rural areas in Europe; they manage more than 11 million ha of agricultural land and deliver ecosystem services. The Common Agricultural Policy will have to accommodate this now widespread production system, through existing or new policy packages. Particularly important is support for commercialisation to incentivise and smooth the transition to commercial agriculture, and agri‐environmental payments to compensate the semi‐subsistence farmers for the provision of ecosystem services.     

江苏省农业生态可持续发展评价

[目的]农业生态系统是国民经济的基础,是农民生活和农业发展的基础,农业生态系统的稳定和可持续发展对促进我国农业发展和国家稳定具有重大意义。[方法]文章利用能值分析法以2005—2016年为时间序列对江苏省农业生态系统进行研究,通过一系列指标评价其可持续性。[结果](1)环境贡献率分析结果表明,2005—2010年生态环境受到一定的影响,耕地面积逐渐减少,环境受到一定的影响, 2011年后,环境有所改善。(2)能值投入率分析结果表明,整体呈现先下降后上升再下降的趋势, 2007—2012年能值投入率有所升高, 2014年达到最大值, 2014—2016年开始下降,该结果说明2008—2014年经济发展迅速。(3)环境负载率分析结果表明环境负载压力逐年上升,但2014—2016年环境负载率趋于稳定,说明江苏省对环境的利用达到一定的平衡。(4)能值可持续性指数分析结果表明各年指数均在3～4.5之间,说明江苏省农业生态系统处于较好的可持续发展状态。[结论]江苏省农业生态系统整体上发展较好,可持续发展潜力较大,但在发展农业的过程中注意推广先进的科学技术,提高资源利用效率,降低对环境的负载率,促进环境与农业生态的协调发展。     

Reconfiguration of land politics in community resource management areas in Ghana: Insights from the Avu Lagoon CREMA

This study explores the reconfiguration of land politics in a poor rural area of Ghana following the development of a community-based resource management and market-based conservation initiative. In particular we focus on an eco-tourism site that was developed through the Avu Lagoon Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) in Ghana. We adopt a political ecology approach that combines qualitative and quantitative information from multiple sources to explain the nature, drivers and outcomes of this reconfiguration of land politics. In particular we track how different environmental and socioeconomic narratives were mobilized and utilised to justify the establishment of the Avu Lagoon CREMA, and how this gave rise to a series of unmet expectations. The restriction of access to fertile land fit for sugarcane production (a key livelihood activity in the area), combined with the underperformance of the ecotourism project, led to different land contestations, including illicit land transfers and silent repossession through encroachment. We synthesize the main findings through the theory of access and argue that these dynamics follow the reconfiguration of land access, and are reflections of the weak enforcement of CREMA regulations, elite capture of the process, and a lack of proper benefit-sharing mechanisms. From a policy perspective, it is important to give due attention to community participation, payment of compensation, proper benefit-sharing mechanisms and the balance of power between local elites, external organisations and the local communities. Only then would CREMA processes be able to deliver their dual objectives of biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic development.     

Can we avoid overdevelopment of river floodplains by economic policies?: A case study of the Ouse catchment (Yorkshire) in the UK

River floodplains are significant environmental resources in that they provide multiple ecosystem services. However, river floodplains are/tend to be overdeveloped because indirect-use values linked with ecosystem services are overlooked by private landowners. In a case study of the Ouse catchment, it turns out that river floodplains tend to be overdeveloped in upstream areas because of a unidirectional spatial externality. We set a simple model that considers both direct- and indirect-use values to analyse the social optimisation. The essential point is that we must consider two types of environmental externalities related to the ecosystem services of river floodplains to make decisions on floodplain development. First, the development of river floodplains has opportunity costs in terms of lost ecosystem services. Second, the development of floodplains increases flood risks to people downstream (imposes a unidirectional spatial external costs). Theoretically, we can easily deal with the problem by zonal economic policies: zonal taxes or subsidies (price policies) and zonal marketable permits or transferable development rights (quantity policies). On the practical side, however, there are so many problems. Then, such approaches are too complex to use. First of all, we have to specify real complicated economic and physical systems which show non-linearity, irreversibility, site-specific relationships, and inter-dependency between systems and sites. Secondly such policies should be ‘zonal’, which might impose substantial transaction costs. In order to apply them to real situations, we have to determine the appropriate number of zones, their sizes and geographical shapes, and then set appropriate rates or amounts of permits in each zone. Furthermore, the determination of zones is difficult because of the trade-off between the internalisation of externalities and implementation costs of policies, which are also related to political frictions and market failure.     

基于生态服务价值的天门土地利用总体规划环境影响评价研究

本研究基于生态系统服务价值理论对天门市2006~2020年土地利用总体规划方案进行环境影响评价。鉴于谢高地等建立的我国生态系统服务功能价值评估体系不适于中小尺度的区域研究,本文根据天门市实际情况修正各土地生态系统单位面积生态服务价值系数,采用Costanza生态系统服务价值计算公式结合ARCGIS 9.3技术得出2005~2020年天门市生态系统服务价值的变化:生态服务总价值量增加7.75亿元;生态服务价值结构变化较小,食物生产、气体调节和保持土壤这三项价值有所减少;空间分布变化主要表现为中心城区城镇生态系统的扩大和周围工矿生态系统的减少。评价结果对天门市生态环境建设具有重要的现实意义。     

Playing musical chairs with land use obligations: Market-based instruments and environmental public policies in Brazil

In Brazil, market-based instruments focusing on land use dimensions are increasingly promoted as a means to make public environmental policies effective. Landowners and farmers call for more flexible regulations and economic incentives to adopt ecologically sound practices, while public agencies and conservation NGOs seek new ways of financing and legitimising legal standards. Market-based instruments are considered by these actors as having the potential to both achieve their own goals and conciliate all interests. As a result, legal frameworks (including cap-and-trade systems, biodiversity offsetting and payments for ecosystem services) are being designed which allow to exchange land use rights and obligations. Under a sociolegal approach, this article provides an overview of such instruments. It shows to what extent they may entail a reconfiguration of the burden sharing and the priority setting of nature conservation. Depending on how actors use legal standards, their responsibilities may be eased and the level of conservation may be lowered, both facts that raise significant controversy.     

Green Agriculture: foundations for biodiverse,resilient and productive agricultural systems

There are many visions on how to achieve a sustainable agriculture that provides enough food and ecosystem services for present and future generations in an era of climate change, increasing costs of energy, social unrest, financial instability and increasing environmental degradation. New agricultural systems that are able to confront the challenges of a rapidly changing world require a minimum of ten attributes that constitute the defining elements of a Green Agriculture. A major challenge is to identify a set of thresholds that any agricultural production strategy must meet, beyond which unsustainable trends caused by the farming technologies would lead to tipping-point phenomena. Only those styles of agriculture that meet the established threshold criteria while advancing rural communities towards food, energy and technological sovereignty would be considered viable forms of Green Agriculture. Considering the diversity of ecological, socio-economic, historical and political contexts in which agricultural systems have developed and are evolving in, it is only wise to define a set of flexible and locally adaptable principles and boundaries of sustainability and resiliency for the agroecosystems of the immediate future.     

土地利用规划环境影响回顾性评价实证研究

以浙江省淳安县为例,探讨运用生态系统服务功能价值进行土地利用规划环境影响回顾性评价的方法,估算土地利用总体规划实施前后,淳安县不同土地利用结构下的生态系统服务价值及构成。结果表明：规划实施以来,淳安县生态服务价值减少了1．67亿元,居民点及工矿用地的内部消耗大于面积扩张给生态系统服务带来的负影响,园地对区域生态服务价值的贡献率提高了2．03％,区域气体调节和废物处理功能价值分别减低了1．47％和0．16％。该结果为新一轮规划的土地利用结构调整方向提供了对策与建议。     

The role of dairy company policies in support of farm green infrastructure in the absence of government stewardship payments

Intensive dairy farming has substantial impacts on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Determining how to mitigate them while increasing production is driving the quest for sustainable milk production internationally. Green infrastructure (G.I.) provides private and public ecosystem services, including mitigation of farming environmental impacts. However, there are implementation barriers among farmers. New Zealand government supports farmer self-regulation as long as farmers meet environmental targets. Farmers are neither compensated for reducing environmental impacts, nor for setting aside G.I. in support of nature conservation. Dairy companies are under increasing pressure to ensure socially acceptable milk production practices among farmer suppliers. They may play a role in encouraging farmers to implement G.I. as a way of helping farmers meet regulatory compliance, and best farming practice. Using a content analysis of company policies, the role of dairy companies in encouraging G.I. among farmers is explored. Results indicate companies are concerned about the effects, and perception, of poor environmental farming practices on their profitability, and have developed some riparian G.I. policies, with government and farmer support. However, policies are farm-focused and are limited to one year, and thus lack the capacity to encourage G.I. in support of key ecosystem services, such as water cleansing and support for indigenous biodiversity that require landscape scaled networks and longer periods. Even at the farm scale, a majority of companies lack policies that encourage significant G.I. networks. Policies suggest companies, and by extension farmers, lack sufficient motivation to protect or restore them voluntarily. Under these conditions, significant G.I. is unlikely to develop under self-regulation, unless supplemented through motivating government stewardship payments.     

Incentivizing sustainable rangeland practices and policies in Colombia’s Orinoco region

Livestock grazing, along with agriculture, are key drivers of deforestation and land degradation that subsequently affect ecosystem service provision in the tropics. Although environmental and agricultural policies may curtail these negative effects, information is needed on how specific programs and instruments could be used to incentivize ranchers into adopting rangeland practices to achieve land conservation. We examine what encourages livestock ranchers to adopt more sustainable rangeland practices with various technical and conservation attributes in Colombia’s Orinoco region. First, we analyze a management alternative based on an improved pasture (IP) approach traditionally used in tropical South America, and another practice that promotes silvopastoral systems (SP) that better sustain the long term provision of ecosystem services. Second, we assess the influence that technical assistance and conservation payment instruments can have on the adoption of the IP or SP programs. Using expert-based elicitation, questionnaires, choice experiments, and econometrics, we found that when either SP or IP management alternatives include a complete technical assistance program (CTAP), emphasizing forage or cattle production, the propensity to adopt the conservation focused SP alternative significantly increases. The SP alternative with CTAP for cattle production was valued by ranchers at $290 ha/year and the CTAP prioritizing forage production was valued at $233 per ha/year. Nonetheless, a basic technical assistance program for cattle production using the IP alternative was valued at $128, but when including the CTAP, the value increased to $262. Adopting conservation practices in the form of compensation payments for not grazing portions of their land in the SP was valued by ranchers at an average of $8 and $10 in the IP. Our findings show that decisions to adopt conservation oriented rangeland practices and policies are not strictly based on monetary payments for ecosystem services alone, but also on technical support.     

Land use planning and the ecosystem approach: An evaluation of case study planning frameworks against the Malawi Principles

Global land use change continues to undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain ecosystem service (ES) flows. Much attention in policy and research has therefore been given to concepts, tools and processes for sustainable land use planning, including consideration of ES and the ecosystem approach. However, there are limited empirical cases or evaluations of ecosystem approach based planning from which lessons can be drawn. The aim of this research therefore was to identify and evaluate existing case study planning frameworks that have the potential to operationalise the ecosystem approach. Based on the Malawi Principles, a new suite of evaluation criteria was developed. This was used to assess case study documentary evidence and evaluate the extent to which the 12 Malawi Principles had been considered. The evaluation also assessed the planning methods/approaches used by the case studies and their potential to help translate the Malawi Principles into land use planning outcomes. Finally, a SWOT analysis was used to structure the main findings. Our results show that the Malawi Principles have been considered across the case studies “fully” or “partially” in 64% of instances suggesting, therefore, that the case studies present a reasonable interpretation of the ecosystem approach. However, poor consideration of biodiversity and environmental limits across the cases highlights the risk of land use management decisions continuing to contribute to the degradation of natural capital.     

Protest Responses and Willingness to Accept: Ecosystem Services Providers’ Preferences towards Incentive‐Based Schemes

The identification and treatment of protest responses in stated preference surveys has long been subject to debate. We analyse protest responses while investigating ecosystem services providers’ preferences for incentive‐based schemes. We use a choice experiment for olive farmers’ preferences for agri‐environmental scheme participation in southern Spain. Our two main objectives are: first, to identify and discuss a range of possible motives for protest responses that emerge in a WTA context; second, we analyse the impact on WTA estimates of censoring serial non‐participation linked to protest or high compensation requirements (very high takers). Using a random parameter logit model in WTA space, we find that the inclusion or exclusion of serial non‐participants in the analysis can have a significant impact on marginal and total WTA estimates. Based on the findings, the paper makes recommendations on how to reduce the incidence of protest responses through survey design, regarding the identification of protesters as opposed to very high takers, and regarding the treatment of both groups of respondents for WTA estimation.     

Social involvement in environmental governance: The relevance of quality assurance processes in forest planning

Socio-environmental policy issues are characterized by inherent scientific uncertainty, ignorance and frequently by social discrepancies. Lack of recognition of the complexity and uncertainty of environmental issues has given rise to problems that have cast doubt on the adequacy of the science for policy model and traditionally employed evidence-based policy, thus leading to a crisis in science. In this context, there is a need for quality assurance procedures to assess policies and measures resulting from decision-making in environmental governance issues.Involving quality assurance in decision-making processes recognizes the different types of uncertainty related to an issue and the limits of problem-solving analysis. This approach requires participatory methodological frameworks in which stakeholders analyze the robustness of the assessment process used as well as the validity of assessment results. The approach considers governance as being a relative term depending on the historical, social, economic, political, environmental and cultural context in which it is developed.A participatory methodology is applied to an assessment of forest track alternatives on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands). In this study, a social sensitivity analysis explores the social validity of this assessment through the concept of quality understood as ‘fitness for use’. Such a methodology facilitates processes of dialogue and consensus needed in decision-making in conflictive situations. As a result this methodology should serve as a reference for other places with similar situations.     

The future of the uplands

Upland areas provide UK society with many important functions, goods and services, but have experienced a number of disturbing trends and face an uncertain future. This paper outlines historic, current and future drivers of environmental, economic, socio-cultural and policy change in UK uplands, and assesses how these have affected or are likely to affect ways in which land is used and the provision of ecosystem services. Information is synthesised into scenarios summarising a range of possible futures anticipated for UK uplands to 2060 and beyond. Finally, innovations in science, technology, governance and policy are evaluated that could enable uplands to continue providing key ecosystem services under a range of scenarios. The paper concludes that many upland areas will need to be prepared for significant reductions in grazing and prescribed burning. Conversely, other areas could experience agricultural intensification, for example significant increases in grazing or an expansion of arable or bioenergy crops into upland valleys, due to anticipated increases in global demand for food and energy. These scenarios will take place in the context of climate change. Many may take place together and may interact with each other, with complex and unpredictable implications for the upland environment, economy and society. In this context, a number of advances are needed in science, technology and policy to maintain viable upland communities and the future provision of ecosystem services. These may include funding for ecological and hydrological restoration via carbon offsetting or other means. It may also involve advances in ecosystem service modelling, mapping and valuation, which through stakeholder participation could facilitate more integrated rural planning. New forms of environmental governance need to be explored that can empower those interested in developing upland economies to maintain thriving upland communities, while managing the ecosystem services they provide as efficiently as possible.