Details zur Publikation

Kategorie Textpublikation
Referenztyp Zeitschriften
DOI 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.01.014
Titel (primär) The cost-effective length of contracts for payments to compensate land owners for biodiversity conservation measures
Autor Drechsler, M.; Johst, K.; Wätzold, F.
Quelle Biological Conservation
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
Department OESA
Band/Volume 207
Seite von 72
Seite bis 79
Sprache englisch
Keywords Agri-environment schemes; Payments for environmental services; Temporal dimension; Ecological-economic modelling; Permanence
UFZ Querschnittsthemen RU6;
Abstract Payments to compensate land owners for land use measures which are beneficial to biodiversity conservation but costly to them have become a prominent policy instrument. A key question in the design of such payment schemes is for how long the land owners shall commit themselves to carry out biodiversity-enhancing land use measures, i.e. the length of contracts. From an ecological perspective, longer contracts seem better as they ensure that an area stays a suitable habitat for a longer time. However, with longer contracts land owners are likely to demand a higher annual compensation payment if they give up for a longer time their right to manage their land in a way they prefer. We analyse with a conceptual ecological-economic model how the cost-effectiveness of short versus long contract lengths depends on different ecological and economic parameters. We demonstrate the practical relevance of the model by applying it to the case of butterfly conservation in a region in Germany. Our results suggest that for the case study a 5-year contract is more cost-effective than a 10-year contract. Overall, we find that when deciding about the contract length economic parameters (for example the budget size where high budgets favour long contract lengths) and ecological parameters (for example species colonisation rates where high rates favour short contract lengths) need to be considered.
dauerhafte UFZ-Verlinkung https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=18399
Drechsler, M., Johst, K., Wätzold, F. (2017):
The cost-effective length of contracts for payments to compensate land owners for biodiversity conservation measures
Biol. Conserv. 207 , 72 - 79 10.1016/j.biocon.2017.01.014