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Eco-services and land-use policy
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 154 (2012) 1
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee
Preface
Eco-services and land-use policy
Despite asymmetries among countries, the quick expansion of cultivation and the increasing use of external inputs explain the growing productivity of food, fiber and bio-energy in agriculturebased economies. However, impacts of this intensification of agricultural land use on the provision of ecosystem services that are essential to human well-being, including water supply, conservation of habitats and biodiversity, climate regulation, disturbance control or soil protection, are still incompletely assessed, understood, and considered in policy context. Given that land-use change is predominantly driven by market forces, the issue of ecosystem service provision was often left out both by economists, decision makers and policy makers (EPA, 2000). As a consequence, potential conflicts can be expected in the near future if land reclamation from different sectors increases, especially in regions where potential transboundary impacts of agriculture are expected to occur (Power, 2010). Land-use policies can either mitigate or aggravate land-use conflicts, and different procedures are applied to support land-use policies in rural areas. But despite their increasing importance in the perception of the general public, few procedures incorporate the notion of ecosystem services (Cowling et al., 2008). In general, classical approaches of land-use policy neither perceive nor measure the hidden costs of losing various intangible assets of nature. For this reason, ecologists have multiplied their efforts to allocate value to the goods and services that traditional economy ignores. During the last two decades some attempts were made to allocate a price to ecosystem services by applying procedures like “willingness-to-pay”, “contingent value”, “replacing value”, “hedonic price” or “travel cost” (MA, 2000). However, current methods for pricing single services in monetary terms are markedly subjective, vary from one society to another, and may say nothing if money cannot be related to ecosystem functions that are associated with service provision (Odum and Odum, 2000). In response to this, alternative suggestions were made that are based on a more objective biophysical view based on the functional value of ecosystem services to amend the subjectivity of economic methods. A workshop entitled “Expansion and intensification of croplands in Argentina: valuation of ecosystem goods and services for land-use policies” held in Buenos Aires in December 2009 addressed these issues. Contributions from this workshop were selected for publication in the present special issue with a focus on case studies from Argentina. Because of the diversity of ecosystems and biomes that were analyzed across the country, the results can serve as examples for other regions in the world facing similar problems.
0167-8809/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2012.03.018
Several of these studies reveal that stocks of biomass and water, and their associated fluxes, in terrestrial ecosystems provide useful biophysical metrics to assess ecosystem service provision. These assessments were located in different regions of Argentina such as the Southern Pampas (Laterra et al., Barral et al.), the highly productive Rolling Pampas (Caride et al., Gavier et al.), the transitional region between the Western Pampas and the Espinal region (Nosetto et al.) and the transition between the subtropical humid forests (Yungas) and the subtropical dry forests (Chaco) in NW ˜ et al. Argentina (Volante et al.). Looking a the country scale, Carreno provide an example of tradeoffs between the estimated annual gross margin per hectare and the value of ecosystem services in three historical periods that differed largely in the area allocated to annual cultivation. I hope that this special issue can make a useful contribution to link land-use policy and ecosystem service provision. The challenge was to display ecosystem service indicators in an understandable and manageable way that facilitates the dialogue among scientists, policy makers and stakeholders. Because objectivity in the economic assessment of ecosystem services is constrained by socioeconomic and cultural gaps among communities, the biophysical evaluation was highlighted in this issue. Tradeoffs analysis was chosen as a practical tool to assess the response of social, economic and ecological indicators per unit of land-use change. The audience in general will easily appreciate that the conflicting relations between economic income and ecosystem service provision as cultivation expands, or between carbon sequestration and water yield as deforestation increases, give room to explore the pros and the cons of alternative land-use policies. References Cowling, R.W., et al., 2008. An operational model for mainstreaming ecosystem services for implementation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 9483– 9488. EPA, 2000. Evaluation Guidelines for Ecological Indicators. United States Environmental Protection Agency Office (EPA) EPA Office of Research and Development. Laura. E. Jackson, Janis C. Kurtz, and William S. Fisher (eds.). Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (USA). MA, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Our Human Planet. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Island Press, Washington, pp. 109. Odum, H.T., Odum, E.P., 2000. The energetic basis for valuation of ecosystem services. Ecosystems 3, 21–23. Power, A.G., 2010. Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies (Review). Philos. Trans. R. Soc. 365, 2959–2971.
Ernesto F. Viglizzo
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee
Preface
Eco-services and land-use policy
Despite asymmetries among countries, the quick expansion of cultivation and the increasing use of external inputs explain the growing productivity of food, fiber and bio-energy in agriculturebased economies. However, impacts of this intensification of agricultural land use on the provision of ecosystem services that are essential to human well-being, including water supply, conservation of habitats and biodiversity, climate regulation, disturbance control or soil protection, are still incompletely assessed, understood, and considered in policy context. Given that land-use change is predominantly driven by market forces, the issue of ecosystem service provision was often left out both by economists, decision makers and policy makers (EPA, 2000). As a consequence, potential conflicts can be expected in the near future if land reclamation from different sectors increases, especially in regions where potential transboundary impacts of agriculture are expected to occur (Power, 2010). Land-use policies can either mitigate or aggravate land-use conflicts, and different procedures are applied to support land-use policies in rural areas. But despite their increasing importance in the perception of the general public, few procedures incorporate the notion of ecosystem services (Cowling et al., 2008). In general, classical approaches of land-use policy neither perceive nor measure the hidden costs of losing various intangible assets of nature. For this reason, ecologists have multiplied their efforts to allocate value to the goods and services that traditional economy ignores. During the last two decades some attempts were made to allocate a price to ecosystem services by applying procedures like “willingness-to-pay”, “contingent value”, “replacing value”, “hedonic price” or “travel cost” (MA, 2000). However, current methods for pricing single services in monetary terms are markedly subjective, vary from one society to another, and may say nothing if money cannot be related to ecosystem functions that are associated with service provision (Odum and Odum, 2000). In response to this, alternative suggestions were made that are based on a more objective biophysical view based on the functional value of ecosystem services to amend the subjectivity of economic methods. A workshop entitled “Expansion and intensification of croplands in Argentina: valuation of ecosystem goods and services for land-use policies” held in Buenos Aires in December 2009 addressed these issues. Contributions from this workshop were selected for publication in the present special issue with a focus on case studies from Argentina. Because of the diversity of ecosystems and biomes that were analyzed across the country, the results can serve as examples for other regions in the world facing similar problems.
0167-8809/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2012.03.018
Several of these studies reveal that stocks of biomass and water, and their associated fluxes, in terrestrial ecosystems provide useful biophysical metrics to assess ecosystem service provision. These assessments were located in different regions of Argentina such as the Southern Pampas (Laterra et al., Barral et al.), the highly productive Rolling Pampas (Caride et al., Gavier et al.), the transitional region between the Western Pampas and the Espinal region (Nosetto et al.) and the transition between the subtropical humid forests (Yungas) and the subtropical dry forests (Chaco) in NW ˜ et al. Argentina (Volante et al.). Looking a the country scale, Carreno provide an example of tradeoffs between the estimated annual gross margin per hectare and the value of ecosystem services in three historical periods that differed largely in the area allocated to annual cultivation. I hope that this special issue can make a useful contribution to link land-use policy and ecosystem service provision. The challenge was to display ecosystem service indicators in an understandable and manageable way that facilitates the dialogue among scientists, policy makers and stakeholders. Because objectivity in the economic assessment of ecosystem services is constrained by socioeconomic and cultural gaps among communities, the biophysical evaluation was highlighted in this issue. Tradeoffs analysis was chosen as a practical tool to assess the response of social, economic and ecological indicators per unit of land-use change. The audience in general will easily appreciate that the conflicting relations between economic income and ecosystem service provision as cultivation expands, or between carbon sequestration and water yield as deforestation increases, give room to explore the pros and the cons of alternative land-use policies. References Cowling, R.W., et al., 2008. An operational model for mainstreaming ecosystem services for implementation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 9483– 9488. EPA, 2000. Evaluation Guidelines for Ecological Indicators. United States Environmental Protection Agency Office (EPA) EPA Office of Research and Development. Laura. E. Jackson, Janis C. Kurtz, and William S. Fisher (eds.). Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (USA). MA, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Our Human Planet. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Island Press, Washington, pp. 109. Odum, H.T., Odum, E.P., 2000. The energetic basis for valuation of ecosystem services. Ecosystems 3, 21–23. Power, A.G., 2010. Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies (Review). Philos. Trans. R. Soc. 365, 2959–2971.
Ernesto F. Viglizzo