Stewardship Payments Research Articles

Landowner Perceptions of Payments for Nature Conservation on Private Land.

Private land conservation (PLC) programs often provide financial incentives to motivate and enable landowners to engage in conservation. However, few studies have explored the psychological and management impacts of these incentives. We interviewed 50 landowners in Tasmania, Australia who were engaged in incentivised or nonincentivised PLC programs. Landowners who received incentives were paid to either protect private land through creating a conservation covenant (a legal deed restricting land uses) or engage in a specific stewardship activity (e.g., planting trees). Most landowners who received payments to create covenants stated that they would not have done so without the payment. However, landowners, including those who have purchased or inherited covenanted properties, also indicated that neither these payments, nor the conservation covenant made any significant impact on how they managed the land. Covenant incentives did not improve attitudes towards conservation or conservationists. In contrast, most landowners receiving stewardship payments reported that these payments enabled the conservation actions they valued, helped build relationships and promoted favorable attitudes towards conservation. Contextual factors that influenced the impact of financial incentives on conservation action included the quality of relationship between landowners and stewardship officers, availability of private funds for conservation, and multigenerational aspirations. Our research identifies some of the intended and unintended impacts of financial incentives and describes how a fuller understanding of the motivations, identities, and aspirations of landowners may lead to the design of more socially resilient and ecologically effective PLC programs.

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.

The role of private conservation in saving biodiversity in Australia

The role of private conservation in saving biodiversity in Australia

Estimating land and conservation management costs: The first step in designing a stewardship program for the Northern Territory

Stewardship programs providing financial incentives for conservation on private lands are increasingly common. We estimate the potential costs of a stewardship program in the Daly River catchment, Northern Territory, which would underwrite the cost difference between routine land management and the additional requirements of conservation management on grazing properties. Based on survey responses from landholders, we first assess the current costs of land management in the catchment and use regression to identify key drivers of spatial variation in both routine land management costs and conservation-oriented management costs. We define conservation-oriented management costs as the costs required to meet objectives for both routine property management and conservation. We then estimate the additional costs of conservation management over and above routine land management at an average of $1.99per ha. We conclude that, if the most cost-effective properties are targeted, an annual budget of $1 million would support stewardship agreements covering 90% of the catchment’s area. Much of the cost-effectiveness of stewardship payments would come from the significant economies of scale in managing large pastoral properties and leveraging the costs of routine land management already met by landholders.

Comparing Regional Biodiversity Benefits of Investment Strategies for Land-Use Change

The need for public investment to address loss of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes is well recognised, yet there is little analysis of the likely benefits of land-use change for regional biodiversity or the cost effectiveness of different investment options. We estimated benefits for biodiversity and cost effectiveness of different investment scenarios over 50 years for a farming area in south-eastern Australia. Declines in biodiversity were predicted under status quo land use. Implementing actions in the investment scenarios improved biodiversity status only slightly, compared with status quo land use. Future biodiversity status differed little between biodiversity-focused investment and salinity-focused investment. Biodiversity status equalled or exceeded current status only for investment scenarios with much more extensive revegetation than in catchment targets. Cost effectiveness of biodiversity improvement varied greatly between investment strategies. Biodiversity improvement was more cost effective when investment to meet catchment targets was focused on revegetation for salinity management rather than on high conservation value areas, because of lower opportunity costs for salinity management. With enhanced investment, the cost effectiveness of biodiversity improvement was greater when actions were in high conservation areas. Although improvements in biodiversity were small under the changed farming system scenarios, their cost effectiveness was higher than the other investment scenarios. Regional scale improvements in biodiversity in farming areas will require increased stewardship payments or other economic incentives for landholders.

Impacts of red meat production on biodiversity in Australia: a review and comparison with alternative protein production industries

All food production systems are under pressure to comply with societal expectations that the produce is not only of good nutritional value but is also sustainably produced. This review compares the performance of the red meat industry in Australia against white meat, plant-protein and other protein production systems across a range of biodiversity pressures through a review of over 500 peer-reviewed and other scientific sources. The review finds that taking into account the past legacy of red meat production systems, these industries make the largest relative potential contribution to the impact on terrestrial biodiversity in Australia, by both the area covered and the nature of the impacts. The review also finds that many initiatives of the beef and sheep industries have the potential to improve the management of biodiversity. To minimise the impact of beef and sheep meat systems on biodiversity, the conservation of natural resources needs to become a core and integral part of production systems, rather than it being perceived as an optional extra if times are good. To help address these challenges, stewardship payments for the ecosystem services (such as carbon, water and biodiversity) provided by the farming community to the wider society warrant further consideration.

Review of Agri-Environment Indexes and Stewardship Payments

Agri-environment programs aim to secure environmental and social stewardship services through payments to farmers. A critical component of many agri-environment programs is an agri-environment index (AEI) used to quantify benefits and target investments. An AEI will typically comprise multiple indicators, which are weighted and combined using a utility function, to measure the benefit of investment options (e.g., projects, farms, regions). This article presents a review of AEIs with 11 case studies from agri-environment programs in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. We identify a generic procedure used to define AEIs and explore the implications of alternative methodological approaches. We conclude that AEIs have become an extremely important policy instrument and make suggestions for their improvement.

What does it take to get family forest owners to enroll in a forest stewardship-type program?

We estimated the probability of enrollment and factors influencing participation in a forest stewardship-type program, Minnesota's Sustainable Forest Incentives Act, using data from a mail survey of over 1000 randomly-selected Minnesota family forest owners. Of the 15 variables tested, only five were significant predictors of a landowner's interest in enrolling in the program: compensation amount, intention to obtain a forest management plan, opposition to the program's land covenant, prior awareness of the program, and total acres of forest land owned. The estimated median minimum compensation required was approximately $24 per acre per year. One-fourth of the survey respondents were undecided about whether they would participate in the stewardship program, suggesting there may be potential to capture additional interest and participation. Marketing efforts to raise program awareness, increasing annual stewardship payments, and eliminating the land covenant are likely to be effective strategies for increasing program participation.

Harnessing nature to improve sustainability

Harnessing nature to improve sustainability

Economics of site-specific weed management

Nascent research on the profitability of site-specific weed management has focused on reduced herbicide use, ignoring significant information costs for scouting, making treatment maps, and patch herbicide application. Including these information costs results in few, if any, studies, fully covering added costs with herbicide savings. Real-time, sensor-driven site-specific herbicide management promises to overcome many of the scouting and map-making costs so long as weed species recognition accuracy continues to improve and commercial capital costs to decline. Two means to increase revenues are possible from site-specific weed management: value-added crop products (e.g., herbicide-free, nontransgenic crops) and environmental stewardship payments from government programs. Site-specific ecological weed management offers a more fruitful means to garner both higher prices from “green” consumers and revenues for sound environmental stewardship. It entails using spatial tools to enhance habitat for weed predators and diseases and their vectors, as well as to grow crops that are better able to compete with weeds. The most economically promising areas for future weed management will draw upon both spatial and developmental management tools.

Agri-Environmental Stewardship Schemes and "Multifunctionality"

The United Kingdom introduced the first agri-environmental scheme in the European Union in 1986. Since then, the United Kingdom has developed and implemented several other schemes that also feature stewardship payments to improve agriculture's environmental performance. In this article, lessons learned from the United Kingdom's agri-environmental programs are identified. Using the concept of “multifunctionality,” which increasingly is influencing agricultural policy in Western Europe, the authors examine key issues associated with potential major expansions of stewardship payment schemes on both sides of the Atlantic.

Editorial - Decision rules, government rules, and the costs of vegetation protection in New South Wales

Editorial - Decision rules, government rules, and the costs of vegetation protection in New South Wales