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Biodiversity-based payments on Swiss alpine pastures
Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 153–159
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Biodiversity-based payments on Swiss alpine pastures
T
Astrid Zabel School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Länggasse 85, 3052, Zollikofen, Switzerland
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Biodiversity-based payment Alpine pasture Property rights Switzerland
This paper presents a case study of a results-based program for biodiversity on alpine pastures in Switzerland. This scheme is in its first cycle and makes payments based on biodiversity levels that were achieved prior to the scheme’s start. The cross-sectional analysis presented in the paper is based on survey data from 429 respondents collected among scheme participants in two Swiss Cantons. Four sets of contextual variables on agronomic decisions, private versus common property management, social capital and environmental preconditions are presented as theoretical framework for the empirical analysis. The data reveal that livestock density, livestock species composition, property rights and individual versus collective management, as well as social capital can explain a large share of the variation in the biodiversity-based payment levels.
1. Introduction Results-based payment schemes are increasingly being chosen as policy tool to incentivize the provision of ecosystem services on farms (Burton and Schwarz, 2013; White and Hanley, 2016; Wezel et al., 2018). In results-based schemes, payments are issued contingent on the provision of certain measurable goods or services. This conditionality on the provision of a good or service distinguishes them from actionbased approaches (Ferraro and Kiss, 2002). In the latter, payments are issued when certain actions are performed that the policy maker anticipates will lead to an improvement in the delivery of the environmental good in question. While the goal of many results-based schemes is the promotion of grassland biodiversity, some also focus on wildlife conservation, water quality or carbon sequestration. Keenleyside et al. (2014); Stolze et al. (2015) and Herzon et al. (2018) provide structured reviews of numerous case studies. A number of advantages are attributed to the results-based approach, which have contributed to their increasing popularity. Advantages compared to other action-based approaches include costeffectiveness (Wätzold and Drechsler, 2005; White and Sadler, 2012), flexibility in the production process of the good (Zabel and Roe, 2009) and welfare gains especially in situations with information asymmetry (Derissen and Quaas, 2013; White and Hanley, 2016). However, there are also challenges that need to be carefully considered such as risk and possible distortion in indicators measuring results (Zabel and Roe, 2009), high transaction costs and skepticism among farmers (Stolze et al., 2015). Often it may be difficult to describe the exact production function for the provision of an environmental good, but some
understanding of the underlying mechanisms may be useful to decrease risk and skepticism. This paper presents a case study of a results-based scheme for plant biodiversity on Swiss alpine summer pastures. At the time of writing (2018), the scheme is in its first 8-year cycle during which payments are based on biodiversity levels that were achieved prior to the scheme’s start. The scheme is available to private as well as common property alps. (The term alp refers to a summer farm in the mountain region.) This allows for an investigation of variation in the biodiversity-based payment as outcome of the agronomic context, the property rights and management regime as well as social capital. While several studies exist that investigate the relationship between grazing and biodiversity on Swiss alpine pastures at a detailed local scale (Peter et al., 2008; Schneider et al., 2011; Homburger et al., 2013; Koch et al., 2013; Schneider et al., 2013), the present analysis investigates these relationships from a broader socio-economic perspective. The analysis provides insights on factors that influence the amount of payment, which itself is a function of biodiversity, across diverse alps. The findings are likely to be of interest to farmers and advisors especially given that there are eight years between the biodiversity inventories which allows for time in adjusting management practices. The next section describes the case study and Section 3 presents the analytical framework for the empirical analysis. This is followed by information on the survey in Section 4 and the presentation of the analysis results in Section 5. Section 6 discusses the results and concludes.
E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.035 Received 28 February 2018; Received in revised form 18 October 2018; Accepted 19 October 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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2. The case study
have no effect on the payment. If the inventory after 8 years reveals that the abundance of plant species from the list has decreased, the payment in the next cycle will be lower, but it has no bearing on the payments already made.
Sending livestock to graze on alpine pastures during the summer months has a long tradition in Switzerland (Netting, 1972). Using pastures at high altitudes fulfills many functions, inter alia increasing the fodder basis for livestock kept in the valley, production of livestock products, avoiding brush encroachment and maintaining an open landscape that is attractive for tourism, protection from natural hazards, sustaining traditions and last but not least biodiversity conservation (Lauber et al., 2013). This paper focuses on the Swiss results-based agri-environmental scheme for plant biodiversity on alpine summer pastures. The scheme started in 2014. Participation is voluntary, but eligibility for the summer pastures is limited by regionally specified constraints on altitude. Experts of the relevant Canton, i.e. the administrative subdivision, conduct inventories on the pastures that are enrolled in the scheme to determine which percentage of the entire pasture has high ecological quality. The inventory is compiled once and the result is then valid for eight years. In the current first cycle, the scheme rewards biodiversity outcomes that resulted from pasture management prior to the start of the scheme. After eight years, so presumably in 2021, the inventories will be repeated and the new results will be valid for the second cycle. Methodological guidelines ensure that the inventories are compiled according to the same procedures across the country (BLW 2014). The relevant criterion for ecological quality is the abundance of plant species from a given list (BLW 2014). Farmers receive an annual payment of CHF150/ha (CHF1 ∼ USD1.03) of ecologically valuable summer pasture. The payment is solely contingent on the abundance of the indicator plant species. The farmers are not required to perform any additional actions to receive the payment (Schulz et al., 2018). The scheme is available to private property as well as common property alps. Contracts with private property alps can be categorized as individual contracts while contracts with common property alps fall into the group of collective contracts. This differentiation is relevant because there is growing interest in collective contracts for situations when the provision of an environmental good requires cooperation between several land managers (Franks, 2011; OECD, 2013). Burton and Schwarz (2013) suggest that the analysis of three dimensions, (i) the proportion of result-based payments relative to base or input payments, (ii) the sensitivity of payments, and (iii) the duration of schemes or payments - can help increase the understanding of comparative strengths and weaknesses of a scheme. The following description of the Swiss case, which is still in its first cycle, is structured around these three dimensions. The Swiss scheme on alpine summer pastures does not offer any form of base payment. Payments are strictly conditional on biodiversity levels, which in the current cycle were assessed prior to the scheme. In 2015 total payments made through this scheme amounted to CHF21.2 Mio. However, it is important to see this policy in the larger context of direct payments related to alpine summer pastures. Three major national programs include a program for summer pasturing that supports use and maintenance of summer pastures (CHF122.3 Mio total in 2015), a program with incentive payments to farmers in the valley regions to increase the attractiveness of using alpine pastures (CHF107.7Mio total in 2015), and finally a program promoting diversity of landscapes and landscape quality (CHF9.8 Mio total in 2015). The assessment of the pastures’ ecological quality is based on inventories conducted on random sample plots. The abundance of plant species from a given list is investigated which in turn triggers the payment. Given that the alps are very large, and it is not feasible to inventory all areas, a hectare of the pasture that, during the inventory, is estimated to have the same ecological quality as a sample plot is rewarded with the same per hectare payment. The sensitivity of the payment to changes in the performance indicator is closely related to program duration. The inventory result is valid for 8 years, so that any changes over time within these 8 years
3. Theoretical framework This section develops hypotheses for an econometric investigation of the variation of biodiversity levels, represented by the biodiversitybased payment, among participants of the scheme for plant biodiversity on Swiss alpine pastures. Four sets of contextual variables are discussed below.
3.1. Agronomic context Grazing by livestock is known to alter nutrient availability and light conditions on pastures which in turn have manifold complex effects on biodiversity (Borer et al., 2014). Moreover, various socio-economic factors impact managed grasslands in the alps (Baur and Binder, 2015). On a homogenous pasture, biodiversity-based payments could be expected to increase with pasture size. Larger pastures may allow for more extensive livestock management and better spreading of manure which could have positive effects on biodiversity. However, alpine pastures are rarely homogenous and spatial monitoring of grazing patterns has shown that grazing intensity is related to slope, fodder quality and distances to water and shelters (Schneider et al., 2013). For centuries, the numbers of livestock that were allowed to graze on the alpine pastures have been regulated to account for the different pasture preconditions. These institutionalized carrying capacities are related to pastures’ yields in terms of fodder production for livestock, but they are not necessarily correlated to pasture size (Werthemann and Imboden, 1982). Stevenson (1991) describes the development of these institutions and their regional differences in great detail. Differences in biodiversity have been found between grasslands that are grazed versus mowed, fertilized versus unfertilized, and used versus abandoned (Maurer et al., 2006). For pastures this points to separate issues of over- and under-use. On pastures that indeed are grazed, increasing livestock density is expected to have a negative impact on biodiversity, and consequently the payment amount (Peter et al., 2008; Homburger et al., 2013). Shrub encroachment and re-growth of forest is an issue especially in the Southern parts of the Swiss alpine region and closely linked to under-use and abandonment of pastures (Gellrich et al., 2007; Koch et al., 2013). Shrub encroachment, however, is of lesser importance in the context of this paper because its focus is on alpine pastures that in fact are used for livestock grazing. Pasture management activities such as shrub removal, construction of fences to guide livestock or placement of salt in areas where more grazing would be preferable have been recommended to maintain biodiversity and avoid shrub encroachment (Koch et al., 2013). Effort in pasture management is thus expected to have a positive effect on biodiversity and thus the payment. The most frequently tended livestock species on Swiss alpine pastures are cattle, cows, suckler cows, sheep and goats (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017). Mixed grazing systems with different livestock species, e.g. cattle and sheep, can lead to a better utilization of pastures with diverse structures in terms of vegetation, altitude and slope (Werthemann and Imboden, 1982; Koch et al., 2013). Imfeld-Mueller (2013) provides an overview of typical grazing patters. Sheep often prefer high altitudes and graze selectively. Cattle tend not to move too far from shelters and graze less selectively. Goats are also selective grazers and due to their agility can graze on steep slopes less accessible to cattle. Taking this into account, the hypothesis here is that a combination of livestock species, i.e. cattle with either sheep or goats is likely to have a positive effect on biodiversity levels. 154
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monetary value with the introduction of the results-based scheme. The relationship between yield and the number of different plant species has been characterized as hump-shaped but some exceptions exist (Schneider et al., 2011, 2013). Given the two layers of factors and diverging streams of literature discussed above, it is difficult to derive clear hypotheses on which combination of property rights allocation and type of managing entity is likely to have highest biodiversity levels.
3.2. Private versus common property management Two layers of factors are relevant in the context of private and common property management on Swiss alpine summer pastures. The first builds on the debate around the tragedy of the commons and the second layer is specific to the Swiss context and accounts for historical differences between different property rights regimes of the alps. The classical tragedy of the commons hypothesis articulated by Hardin (1968) suggests that groups of resource users will inevitably overuse a common pool resource. The resulting key recommendation is that sustainable resource use can only be achieved through privatization or state management. In the following decades many counterexamples of successful commons management were identified demonstrating that the tragedy of the commons can be overcome, especially under conditions of well-functioning group internal resource management regimes (Ostrom, 1990; Baland and Platteau, 1996). Contrary to Hardin’s hypothesis, Poteete and Ostrom (2008) argue that communities of organized users indeed achieve more sustainable outcomes than state management or privatization. Slaev and Collier (2018) stress that, between the two extremes of purely private and purely common property, there are many forms of mixed property rights allocations and management forms that deserve more consideration in debates on sustainable resource management. Whether purely private, purely common, or a mix of both property rights and management forms provides the best incentive structure for sustainable natural resource management in a certain case needs to be determined empirically under consideration of the cases’ contextual characteristics. In Switzerland, there are various types of legal entities responsible for managing alps (Lauber et al., 2013). Cooperatives, public organizations, ordinary partnerships, municipality owned alps, and registered societies can all be categorized into the large group of common property while a natural person as legal entity represents private property. In practice however, the management of the pastures can be delegated to an individual despite the alp being a legal entity that falls into the group of common property. Likewise, an alp that is registered as natural person can be managed jointly by the owner as well as other farmers who pay the owner a fee to pasture their livestock there or jointly with an employed herder. These different cases allow for a comparison of four categories: private property with individual management, private property with collective management, common property with management by an individual and finally common property with collective management. Note that management by an individual can include support through the individual’s family. Referring to the differentiation of individual and collective results-based contracts, private property alps who participate in the scheme can be said to have individual contracts and common-property alps have collective contracts. As mentioned above, historical differences between individual and common property alps need to be considered. There are historically grown associations between average yields and private and common property of the pastures. Private alp pastures tend to be smaller in size, located at lower altitudes and can support more livestock per hectare than their common property counterparts (Werthemann and Imboden, 1982). For a subsample of cheese producing alps in the Canton of Bern, Stevenson (1991) finds that alpine pastures with more favorable conditions for cattle grazing, e.g. better soil, better grass conditions and fewer swampy spots, are more likely to be under private than common property. Baur et al. (2007) argue that cantons with lower average carrying capacities on the summer pastures have a larger share of common property pastures. Yet the cause-effect relationship remains unclear, i.e. whether common property was established in areas with less favorable conditions; if common property management has led to pastures with lesser yields; or perhaps common property management improved the pastures but could not compensate for the less favorable conditions at higher altitudes. At this point it is important to keep in mind that yield for agronomic purposes was of key relevance in the past and biodiversity on the alpine pastures only received an explicit
3.3. Social capital Social capital, in the sense of networking and strong social bonds, enhances trust among individuals (Ostrom and Ahn, 2009). Trust in turn decreases transaction costs of cooperation and increases individual’s propensity to invest in collective action (Pretty, 2003). Uphoff (2000) distinguishes between structural and cognitive social capital, the former relating to observable forms of organization, rules and networks that facilitate cooperation by decreasing transaction costs. Cognitive social capital rather refers to norms, attitudes and beliefs that are less easy to observe, but affect individuals’ predispositions toward collective action. Related to natural resources, social capital has, in many different contexts, been found to support resource governance outcomes and enhance ecosystem service flows (Bodin and Crona, 2009). For example, social cohesion, as one dimension of social capital, has been found to be an important factor in collaborative fisheries management (Gutiérrez et al., 2011). In the setting of an Italian mountain community, Notaro and Paletto (2011) find that social capital, in the sense of involvement in community life and voluntary community activities, plays a key role in the production of environmental services. In previous research on Swiss mountain communities, social capital was, inter alia, related to cultural events, village fairs, and local markets (Mühlinghaus and Wälty, 2001). A traditional cultural event specific to the alps is the alp festival which is organized by and for the members of the alp. Building on these previous studies and backed-up through expert interviews in preparation of this research, the hypothesis here is that social capital, measured by the organization of an alp festival, is positively related to biodiversity outcomes. 3.4. Environmental preconditions Natural-geographic factors such as soil type, altitudinal gradient and climate are likely to be relevant determinants of biodiversity but cannot be altered by land managers. Peter et al. (2008) argue that slope and altitude affect management intensity and management intensity in turn affects floristic composition on alpine grasslands. Unfortunately, data on natural-geographic variables is not readily available in the data set used for this study, an issue that needs to be kept in mind in the data analysis. 4. Survey A mail survey was sent to all managers of alpine pastures in the Cantons of Bern and Grisons in September 2016 followed by a reminder to those who had not initially responded (see Fig. 1). Given that Switzerland has four official languages, the survey was made available in German, French and Italian. Much effort was put into precisely translating the survey to allow for comparability of the responses. The Cantons of Bern and Grisons were selected because they traditionally have different types of entities undertaking the management of alpine pastures. While family farms dominate in the Canton of Bern, alpine pastures are mostly managed by cooperatives in Grisons. In total the survey was sent to 1988 managers of alpine pastures and 1008 responses were obtained. This results in a reasonably high response rate of 50.7%. Of the 1008 respondents 84% (845) participate in the results-based scheme. This paper will focus on this subsample of 155
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Fig. 1. Study cantons Bern and Grisons (Bundesamt für Landestopografie swisstopo, 2018).
incrementally increase with pasture size. Interestingly, effort in pasture management is not significant. The omitted livestock category contains alps with only one livestock species. In this comparison group of 311 observations 92% have only cattle, 7% have only sheep and the remaining 1% have horses or bison. The livestock composition dummies reveal that pasturing cattle with sheep and/or goats can have positive effects on biodiversity outcomes compared to the single species farms. The coefficient for cattle and sheep is almost three times as high as the coefficient for cattle and goats. The coefficient for pasturing sheep and goats without cattle is not significant. The coefficients for the three dummies indicating cooperation between land managers are all significant and have a positive sign. The omitted category that these coefficients need to be compared against is private property with individual management. Note that the values of the coefficients increase from private property with collective management over common property with individual management to common property with collective management. The social capital indicator “Alpfestival” is highly significant and has the expected positive sign. The control variable “Bern” for cantonal differences is not significant. The demographic controls in model (2) are mostly non-significant apart from the negative coefficients for a university degree and craftsman, the latter which is only weakly significant. Overall, the models explain roughly 40% of the variation in the data. Post-estimation tests reveal that both models have omitted variables. This is not surprising, given that no natural-geographic variables are included. Moreover, robust standard errors are used to deal with heteroscedasticity. Variance inflation factors in both models are all below 2, indicating that multicollinearity is not a problem.
participants. From the scheme participants, 674 alp managers granted permission to use supplementary data, for research purposes, on their legal entity, their livestock statistics and the amount of biodiversitybased payment they receive for the alpine pasture. Due to missing data on different variables, the sample used in the analyses below contains 429 observations. 279 observations are from the Canton of Bern which corresponds to 20% of all alps participating in the scheme there. The remaining 150 observations are from Grisons and correspond to 30% of the alps participating in the scheme in Grisons. Overall 63.7% of all alps in the Canton of Bern and 78.7% of the alps in Grisons that are listed as recipients of some form of direct payment participate in this scheme (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017). 5. Results 5.1. Descriptive statistics Table 1 provides summary statistics on the variables used in the subsequent analyses. After summary statistics on the dependent variable, the table lists the explanatory variables according to the structure of the theoretical framework discussed in Section 3. Unfortunately, data on natural-geographic characteristics is not available. Fig. 2 shows the distribution of the payment variable in absolute numbers and as log transformed variable. 5.2. Payment as outcome of socio-economic determinants As discussed above, variation in biodiversity-based payments is hypothesized to depend on agronomic management decisions, the degree of cooperation between land managers, as expressed by combinations of private vs. common property and individual vs. collective management, social capital, as well as natural-geographic factors. Table 2 presents two OLS (ordinary least squares) regression models that test the corresponding hypotheses. The second model repeats the first model and additionally includes demographic control variables. Natural-geographic factors are omitted due to lack of data. The dependent variable, LnPayment, is log-transformed so that the coefficients need to be interpreted as percentage changes. Livestock density is highly significant and has the expected negative sign, indicating that biodiversity decreases with increasing livestock density. Pasture size is not significant, indicating that payment does not
6. Discussion and conclusions This paper presents a case study on the results-based scheme for plant biodiversity on Swiss alpine pastures. Payments in the current first cycle of the scheme are based on biodiversity levels measured at the start of the scheme, i.e. reward biodiversity outcomes achieved prior to the beginning of the scheme. The paper empirically investigates whether three sets of variables, namely the agronomic context, different combinations of private vs. common property and individual vs. 156
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics. Variable Biodiversity outcome Payment Biodiversity-based payment in CHF LnPayment Log-transformed variable Payment Agronomic decisions Density13 Standardized livestock units in 2013 per ha Pasturearea Estimated area in ha Effort13 Hours of pasture management per stoss* in 2013 CSG Dummy for cattle, sheep and goats CS Dummy for cattle and sheep CG Dummy for cattle and goats SG Dummy for sheep and goats Property rights and management PrInd Dummy for private property and individual management PrColl Dummy for private property and collective management ComInd Dummy for common property and individual management ComColl Dummy for common property and collective management Social capital Alpfestival Dummy for organization of a traditional festival (Demographic) controls Bern Dummy for canton Bern Male Dummy for sex Elementry Dummy for elementry school as highest level of education Craftsman Dummy for master craftsman diploma as highest level of education University Dummy for university education Age Alp manager’s age
Mean
Std. Dev.
Min
Max
6786.16 8.02
9583.03 1.39
16.50 2.80
75000 11.23
429 429
0.98 328.5 15.91
1.16 2181 55.75
0 1.65 0
8.66 42000 570
49.72
10.50
20
85
Freq.
Per-cent
N
12 20 84 2
2.8 4.66 19.58 0.47
429 429 429 429 429 429 429
146 56 52 175
34.03 13.05 12.12 40.79
429 429 429 429
87
20.28
429
279 400 48 84 14
65.03 96.39 11.37 19.91 13.32
429 429 429 429 422 415
* ’’Stoss” is a roughage consuming livestock unit that is pastured on the alp for 100 days.
shaped relationship was not confirmed by the data. Indeed, ecological research has shown that biodiversity increases with “light” shrub encroachment and only decreases when the shrubs cover more than 50% of the area (Hofer et al., 2013). However, the data on which this finding is based is only from one alp and it is unclear whether the plant species found among the shrubs are also a part of the list of biodiversity indicators that can trigger a payment. The three coefficients for different combinations of property and management are all significant and have a positive sign. Private property with individual management is the omitted category and hence the base for comparison. The data reveal that, on average, the payment is higher on alps that have either common property and/or collective management. The coefficients’ values increase from private property with collective management over common property with individual management, to common property with collective management. At this point, it is important to recall that the payment is based on biodiversity achievements established before the scheme’s start. Based on the two layers of factors discussed in the theoretical framework, several interpretations of these results are possible.
collective management, as well as social capital can explain variation in the biodiversity-based payments. Among the agronomic variables, factors that were found to have a significant positive effect were pasturing cattle and sheep and/or goats rather than a single livestock species. This suggests that the composition of livestock species is indeed important, and that pasturing cattle and other ruminants, in particular sheep, can have positive effects on biodiversity. It is plausible that this is due to the species different grazing behavior (Imfeld-Mueller, 2013; Mack and Flury, 2014). This finding is relevant because the overall number of sheep (measured in the unit “Normalstösse”) grazed on alpine summer pastures decreased by approximately 20% from 2000 to 2016 (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017). The variable on effort in pasture management could not help explain the variation in the biodiversity-based payments. Livestock density, as expected, has a significant negative effect on the biodiversitybased payments. An alternative model, not presented here, was tested to check whether there is a non-linear hump-shaped relationship between livestock density and payment. The existence of such a hump-
Fig. 2. Distributions of the variables “Payment” and “LnPayment”. 157
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The data did not reveal significant differences between the two cantons included in the survey. Most of the demographic controls included in the second model were insignificant apart from two education dummies. A shortcoming of the study is that it takes into account only a snapshot of the current management system. Biodiversity levels today may however be a result of a long history of management decisions that are not adequately reflected in the data. Moreover, this study is based on survey data from only two Cantons and thus may fail to address peculiarities that are relevant in other Cantons. Nevertheless, several policy recommendations can be derived from this analysis. The first is that livestock density plays an important role for alpine biodiversity and should be carefully analyzed in biodiversity promoting programs. Indeed, after finalizing the data collection for this study, the biodiversity-based payment was capped to CHF300 per “stoss”. This means that the maximum amount of payment is limited by the alp’s individual carrying capacity which sets constraints on livestock numbers. An interesting question for future evaluations will be whether livestock numbers increased in response to payment cuts due to the cap on alps that initially were below their carrying capacity. In consequence it will be interesting to monitor if biodiversity levels on such alpine pastures change. The second recommendation concerns the positive effects of mixed grazing systems over single species systems. This could be relevant information for alp managers participating in the results-based scheme, especially in view of the decreasing number of sheep that are sent to graze on the alpine pastures. There may be need for more detailed analysis on the potential, strengths and weaknesses of mixed grazing systems as well as awareness raising among alp managers. The investigation of common versus private property and individual versus collective management revealed that the prevailing property and management regime appears to have an effect on biodiversity levels, but the interpretation of the underlying causes remains clouded. The property rights and management systems are complex multifaceted relationships that need to be interpreted with great care. Further research is necessary to investigate in more detail how these systems with their long traditions impact biodiversity and how the introduction of the results-based payment scheme affects future biodiversity levels. A better understanding of these relationships could help improve future policy design.
Table 2 Results for the analysis of biodiversity-based payments. Variables
(1) OLS Payment
(2) OLS Payment
Density13
−0.4532*** (0.0541) −5.37e-06 (2.07e-05) −0.0008 (0.0008) 0.8758*** (0.2845) 1.1765*** (0.2000) 0.4260*** (0.1381) −0.2242 (0.1833) 0.4661** (0.1997) 0.6649*** (0.1846) 1.2698*** (0.1424) 0.4008*** (0.1260) −0.0645 (0.1565)
−0.4390*** (0.0505) −1.03e-05 (1.74e-05) −0.0008 (0.0011) 0.9385*** (0.2637) 1.2306*** (0.2205) 0.4775*** (0.1354) −0.0722 (0.2167) 0.4305** (0.2016) 0.6485*** (0.1831) 1.3143*** (0.1460) 0.4914*** (0.1334) −0.0513 (0.1568) 0.0022 (0.0052) −0.4254 (0.4856) 0.1106 (0.1688) −0.2512* (0.1395) −1.1812** (0.5023) 7.9156*** (0.5344) 409 0.4342
Pasturearea Effort13 CSG CS CG SG PrColl ComInd ComColl Alpfestival Bern Age Male Elementry Craftsman University Const Obs r-squared
7.6189*** (0.1896) 429 0.4083
Robust standard errors in parentheses. *** p < 0.01. ** p < 0.05. * p < 0.1.
Declarations of interest
From today’s perspective with high appreciation of biodiversity, the findings can be interpreted as supportive of the hypothesis put forward by Poteete and Ostrom (2008) that communities of organized users achieve more sustainable outcomes than private owners. The cooperatives in this case study are long standing groups with governance regimes that have evolved over decades or even centuries, a characteristic that has often been found to support collective action (Ostrom, 1990). Yet, in former times before biodiversity was valued as today, the interpretation may have been vise-versa especially if high biodiversity levels are associated with low yields. However, the differences observed in the analysis may also be due to the historically grown structural differences between private and common property alps. For example, it is possible that the property rights are simply mediating altitude which could not be controlled for in the analysis. The question which factor or which combination of factors is indeed driving this result cannot be resolved at this point and requires further research. The positive effect of the social capital indicator “Alpfestival” is in line with previous findings that social bonds and trust between actors have a positive effect on natural resource governance outcomes (Bodin and Crona, 2009). Alpfestivals, per se, are a type of structural social capital, but it is likely that cognitive social capital is reinforced when the traditions closely tied to the resource are fostered by the resource user group.
None. Acknowledgement The data collection for this work was supported by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture. References Baland, J.-M., Platteau, J.-P., 1996. Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a Role for Rural Communities? Clarendon Press, Oxford. Baur, I., Binder, C.R., 2015. Modeling and assessing scenarios of common property pastures management in Switzerland. Ecol. Econ. 119, 292–305. Baur, P., Müller, P., Herzog, F., 2007. Alpweiden im wandel. Agrarforschung 14 (6), 254–259. Bodin, Ö., Crona, B.I., 2009. The role of social networks in natural resource governance: What relational patterns make a difference? Glob. Environ. Change-Hum. Policy Dimens. 19 (3), 366–374. Bundesamt für Landestopografie swisstopo, 2018. Bundesamt für Landestopografie swisstopo. Swisstopo, Map of Switzerland. Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017. Bundesamt Für Landwirtschaft 2017. Agrarbericht, Bern. Burton, R.J.F., Schwarz, G., 2013. Result-oriented agri-environmental schemes in Europe and their potential for promoting behavioural change. Land Use Policy 30 (1), 628–641. Derissen, S., Quaas, M.F., 2013. Combining performance-based and action-based payments to provide environmental goods under uncertainty. Ecol. Econ. 85, 77–84.
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EPOC(2012)11/FINAL. . Ostrom, E., 1990. Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (en). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Ostrom, E., Ahn, T.-K., 2009. The meaning of social capital and its link to collective action. Handbook of Social Capital. The Troika of Sociology, Political Science and Economics. pp. 17–35. Peter, M., Edwards, P.J., Jeanneret, P., Kampmann, D., Lüscher, A., 2008. Changes over three decades in the floristic composition of fertile permanent grasslands in the Swiss Alps. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 125 (1-4), 204–212. Poteete, A.R., Ostrom, E., 2008. Fifteen years of empirical research on collective action in natural resource management: struggling to build Large-N databases based on qualitative research. World Dev. 36 (1), 176–195. Pretty, J., 2003. Social capital and the collective management of resources. Science 302 (5652), 1912–1914. Schneider, M.K., Homburger, H., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Lüscher, A., 2011. Survey of the biodiversity-productivity relationship in Swiss summer pastures. Grassland Sci. Europe 16, 487–489. Schneider, M.K., Homburger, H., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Lüscher, A., 2013. Beweidungsintensität und Ökosystemleistungen im Alpgebiet. Agrarforschung Schweiz 4 (5), 222–229. Schulz, T., Lauber, S., Herzog, F., 2018. Summer farms in Switzerland: profitability and public financial support. Res. Dev. 38 (1), 14–23. Slaev, A.D., Collier, M., 2018. Managing natural resources: coasean bargaining versus Ostromian rules of common governance. Environ. Sci. Policy 85, 47–53. Stevenson, G., 1991. Common Property Economics: a General Theory and Land Use Applications. Cambridge University Press. Stolze, M., Frick, R., Schmid, O., Stöckli, S., Bogner, D., Chevillat, V., Dubbert, M., Fleury, P., Neuner, S., Nitsch, H., Plaikner, M., Schramek, J., Tasser, E., Vincent, A., Wezel, A., 2015. Result-oriented Measures for Biodiversity in Mountain Farming: a Policy Handbook. FiBL. Uphoff, N., 2000. Understanding social capital: Learning from the analysis and experience of participation. Social Capital: A Multifaceted Perspective. pp. 215–249. Wätzold, F., Drechsler, M., 2005. Spatially Uniform versus Spatially Heterogeneous Compensation Payments for Biodiversity-Enhancing Land-Use Measures. Environ. Resour. Econ. 31, 73–93. Werthemann, A., Imboden, A., 1982. Die Alp- und Weidewirtschaft in der Schweiz: Zusammenfassung der Alpkatastererhebungen. Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft. Wezel, A., Vincent, A., Nitsch, H., Schmid, O., Dubbert, M., Tasser, E., Fleury, P., Stöckli, S., Stolze, M., Bogner, D., 2018. Farmers’ perceptions, preferences, and propositions for result-oriented measures in mountain farming. Land Use Policy 70, 117–127. White, B., Hanley, N., 2016. Should we pay for ecosystem service outputs, inputs or both? Environ. Resour. Econ. 63 (4), 765–787. White, B., Sadler, R., 2012. Optimal conservation investment for a biodiversity-rich agricultural landscape*. Aust. J. Agric. Resour. Econ. 56 (1), 1–21. Zabel, A., Roe, B., 2009. Optimal design of pro-conservation incentives. Ecol. Econ. 69 (1), 126–134.
Ferraro, P.J., Kiss, A., 2002. Direct payments to conserve biodiversity (da). Science 298 (5599), 1718–1719. Franks, J.R., 2011. The collective provision of environmental goods: a discussion of contractual issues. J. Environ. Plan. Manag. 54 (5), 637–660. Gellrich, M., Baur, P., Koch, B., Zimmermann, N.E., 2007. Agricultural land abandonment and natural forest re-growth in the Swiss mountains: a spatially explicit economic analysis. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 118 (1-4), 93–108. Gutiérrez, N.L., Hilborn, R., Defeo, O., 2011. Leadership, social capital and incentives promote successful fisheries. Nature 470 386 EP -. Hardin, G., 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162 (3859), 1243–1248. Herzon, I., Birge, T., Allen, B., Povellato, A., Vanni, F., Hart, K., Radley, G., Tucker, G., Keenleyside, C., Oppermann, R., Underwood, E., Poux, X., Beaufoy, G., Pražan, J., 2018. Time to look for evidence: results-based approach to biodiversity conservation on farmland in Europe. Land Use Policy 71, 347–354. Hofer, G., Junge, X., Koch, B., Schüpbach, B., 2013. Einzigartige Kulturlandschaft und Artenvielfalt im Sömmerungsgebiet. In: Lauber, S., Herzog, F., Seidl, I., Böni, R., Bürgi, M., Gmür, P., Hofer, G., Mann, S., Raaflaub, M., Schick, M., Schneider, M., Wunderli, R. (Eds.), Zukunft der Schweizer Alpwirtschaft: Fakten, Analysen und Denkanstösse aus dem Forschungsprogramm AlpFUTUR. WSL, Birmensdorf. Homburger, H., Schneider, M.K., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Lüscher, A., 2013. Grazing intensity and ecosystem services in subalpine pastures. In: Helgadóttir, Á., Hopkins, A. (Eds.), Grazing Intensity and Ecosystem Services in Subalpine Pastures. Agricultural University of Iceland. Imfeld-Mueller, S., 2013. Nutztierhaltung auf der Alp - eine Literaturübersicht. Agrarforschung Schweiz 4 (5), 216–221. Keenleyside, C., Radley, G., Tucker, G., Underwood, E., 2014. Results-based Payments for Biodiversity Guidance Handbook: Designing and Implementing Results-based Agrienvironment Schemes 2014-20. Institute for European Environmental Policy, London. Koch, B., Hofer, G., Walter, T., Edwards, P.J., Blanckenhorn, W.U., 2013. Artenvielfalt auf verbuschten Alpweiden: Empfehlungen zur Bewirtschaftung von artenreichen Alpweiden mit Verbuschungsproblemen. ART-Bericht 769. Lauber, S., Herzog, F., Seidl, I., Böni, R., Bürgi, M., Gmür, P., Hofer, G., Mann, S., Raaflaub, M., Schick, M., Schneider, M., Wunderli, R. (Eds.), 2013. Zukunft der Schweizer Alpwirtschaft: Fakten, Analysen und Denkanstösse aus dem Forschungsprogramm AlpFUTUR. WSL, Birmensdorf 198 S. Mack, G., Flury, C., 2014. Wie wirken die neuen Alpungsbeiträge? Agrarforschung Schweiz 5 (3), 88–95. Maurer, K., Weyand, A., Fischer, M., Stöcklin, J., 2006. Old cultural traditions, in addition to land use and topography, are shaping plant diversity of grasslands in the Alps. Biol. Conserv. 130 (3), 438–446. Mühlinghaus, S., Wälty, S., 2001. Endogenous development in swiss mountain communities. Res. Dev. 21 (3), 236–242. Notaro, S., Paletto, A., 2011. Links between mountain communities and environmental services in the Italian Alps. Sociologia Ruralis 51 (2), 137–157. OECD, 2013. Providing Agri-environmental Public Goods Through Collective Action Joint Working Party on Agriculture and the Environment. COM/TAD/CA/ENV/
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Biodiversity-based payments on Swiss alpine pastures
T
Astrid Zabel School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Länggasse 85, 3052, Zollikofen, Switzerland
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Biodiversity-based payment Alpine pasture Property rights Switzerland
This paper presents a case study of a results-based program for biodiversity on alpine pastures in Switzerland. This scheme is in its first cycle and makes payments based on biodiversity levels that were achieved prior to the scheme’s start. The cross-sectional analysis presented in the paper is based on survey data from 429 respondents collected among scheme participants in two Swiss Cantons. Four sets of contextual variables on agronomic decisions, private versus common property management, social capital and environmental preconditions are presented as theoretical framework for the empirical analysis. The data reveal that livestock density, livestock species composition, property rights and individual versus collective management, as well as social capital can explain a large share of the variation in the biodiversity-based payment levels.
1. Introduction Results-based payment schemes are increasingly being chosen as policy tool to incentivize the provision of ecosystem services on farms (Burton and Schwarz, 2013; White and Hanley, 2016; Wezel et al., 2018). In results-based schemes, payments are issued contingent on the provision of certain measurable goods or services. This conditionality on the provision of a good or service distinguishes them from actionbased approaches (Ferraro and Kiss, 2002). In the latter, payments are issued when certain actions are performed that the policy maker anticipates will lead to an improvement in the delivery of the environmental good in question. While the goal of many results-based schemes is the promotion of grassland biodiversity, some also focus on wildlife conservation, water quality or carbon sequestration. Keenleyside et al. (2014); Stolze et al. (2015) and Herzon et al. (2018) provide structured reviews of numerous case studies. A number of advantages are attributed to the results-based approach, which have contributed to their increasing popularity. Advantages compared to other action-based approaches include costeffectiveness (Wätzold and Drechsler, 2005; White and Sadler, 2012), flexibility in the production process of the good (Zabel and Roe, 2009) and welfare gains especially in situations with information asymmetry (Derissen and Quaas, 2013; White and Hanley, 2016). However, there are also challenges that need to be carefully considered such as risk and possible distortion in indicators measuring results (Zabel and Roe, 2009), high transaction costs and skepticism among farmers (Stolze et al., 2015). Often it may be difficult to describe the exact production function for the provision of an environmental good, but some
understanding of the underlying mechanisms may be useful to decrease risk and skepticism. This paper presents a case study of a results-based scheme for plant biodiversity on Swiss alpine summer pastures. At the time of writing (2018), the scheme is in its first 8-year cycle during which payments are based on biodiversity levels that were achieved prior to the scheme’s start. The scheme is available to private as well as common property alps. (The term alp refers to a summer farm in the mountain region.) This allows for an investigation of variation in the biodiversity-based payment as outcome of the agronomic context, the property rights and management regime as well as social capital. While several studies exist that investigate the relationship between grazing and biodiversity on Swiss alpine pastures at a detailed local scale (Peter et al., 2008; Schneider et al., 2011; Homburger et al., 2013; Koch et al., 2013; Schneider et al., 2013), the present analysis investigates these relationships from a broader socio-economic perspective. The analysis provides insights on factors that influence the amount of payment, which itself is a function of biodiversity, across diverse alps. The findings are likely to be of interest to farmers and advisors especially given that there are eight years between the biodiversity inventories which allows for time in adjusting management practices. The next section describes the case study and Section 3 presents the analytical framework for the empirical analysis. This is followed by information on the survey in Section 4 and the presentation of the analysis results in Section 5. Section 6 discusses the results and concludes.
E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.035 Received 28 February 2018; Received in revised form 18 October 2018; Accepted 19 October 2018 0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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2. The case study
have no effect on the payment. If the inventory after 8 years reveals that the abundance of plant species from the list has decreased, the payment in the next cycle will be lower, but it has no bearing on the payments already made.
Sending livestock to graze on alpine pastures during the summer months has a long tradition in Switzerland (Netting, 1972). Using pastures at high altitudes fulfills many functions, inter alia increasing the fodder basis for livestock kept in the valley, production of livestock products, avoiding brush encroachment and maintaining an open landscape that is attractive for tourism, protection from natural hazards, sustaining traditions and last but not least biodiversity conservation (Lauber et al., 2013). This paper focuses on the Swiss results-based agri-environmental scheme for plant biodiversity on alpine summer pastures. The scheme started in 2014. Participation is voluntary, but eligibility for the summer pastures is limited by regionally specified constraints on altitude. Experts of the relevant Canton, i.e. the administrative subdivision, conduct inventories on the pastures that are enrolled in the scheme to determine which percentage of the entire pasture has high ecological quality. The inventory is compiled once and the result is then valid for eight years. In the current first cycle, the scheme rewards biodiversity outcomes that resulted from pasture management prior to the start of the scheme. After eight years, so presumably in 2021, the inventories will be repeated and the new results will be valid for the second cycle. Methodological guidelines ensure that the inventories are compiled according to the same procedures across the country (BLW 2014). The relevant criterion for ecological quality is the abundance of plant species from a given list (BLW 2014). Farmers receive an annual payment of CHF150/ha (CHF1 ∼ USD1.03) of ecologically valuable summer pasture. The payment is solely contingent on the abundance of the indicator plant species. The farmers are not required to perform any additional actions to receive the payment (Schulz et al., 2018). The scheme is available to private property as well as common property alps. Contracts with private property alps can be categorized as individual contracts while contracts with common property alps fall into the group of collective contracts. This differentiation is relevant because there is growing interest in collective contracts for situations when the provision of an environmental good requires cooperation between several land managers (Franks, 2011; OECD, 2013). Burton and Schwarz (2013) suggest that the analysis of three dimensions, (i) the proportion of result-based payments relative to base or input payments, (ii) the sensitivity of payments, and (iii) the duration of schemes or payments - can help increase the understanding of comparative strengths and weaknesses of a scheme. The following description of the Swiss case, which is still in its first cycle, is structured around these three dimensions. The Swiss scheme on alpine summer pastures does not offer any form of base payment. Payments are strictly conditional on biodiversity levels, which in the current cycle were assessed prior to the scheme. In 2015 total payments made through this scheme amounted to CHF21.2 Mio. However, it is important to see this policy in the larger context of direct payments related to alpine summer pastures. Three major national programs include a program for summer pasturing that supports use and maintenance of summer pastures (CHF122.3 Mio total in 2015), a program with incentive payments to farmers in the valley regions to increase the attractiveness of using alpine pastures (CHF107.7Mio total in 2015), and finally a program promoting diversity of landscapes and landscape quality (CHF9.8 Mio total in 2015). The assessment of the pastures’ ecological quality is based on inventories conducted on random sample plots. The abundance of plant species from a given list is investigated which in turn triggers the payment. Given that the alps are very large, and it is not feasible to inventory all areas, a hectare of the pasture that, during the inventory, is estimated to have the same ecological quality as a sample plot is rewarded with the same per hectare payment. The sensitivity of the payment to changes in the performance indicator is closely related to program duration. The inventory result is valid for 8 years, so that any changes over time within these 8 years
3. Theoretical framework This section develops hypotheses for an econometric investigation of the variation of biodiversity levels, represented by the biodiversitybased payment, among participants of the scheme for plant biodiversity on Swiss alpine pastures. Four sets of contextual variables are discussed below.
3.1. Agronomic context Grazing by livestock is known to alter nutrient availability and light conditions on pastures which in turn have manifold complex effects on biodiversity (Borer et al., 2014). Moreover, various socio-economic factors impact managed grasslands in the alps (Baur and Binder, 2015). On a homogenous pasture, biodiversity-based payments could be expected to increase with pasture size. Larger pastures may allow for more extensive livestock management and better spreading of manure which could have positive effects on biodiversity. However, alpine pastures are rarely homogenous and spatial monitoring of grazing patterns has shown that grazing intensity is related to slope, fodder quality and distances to water and shelters (Schneider et al., 2013). For centuries, the numbers of livestock that were allowed to graze on the alpine pastures have been regulated to account for the different pasture preconditions. These institutionalized carrying capacities are related to pastures’ yields in terms of fodder production for livestock, but they are not necessarily correlated to pasture size (Werthemann and Imboden, 1982). Stevenson (1991) describes the development of these institutions and their regional differences in great detail. Differences in biodiversity have been found between grasslands that are grazed versus mowed, fertilized versus unfertilized, and used versus abandoned (Maurer et al., 2006). For pastures this points to separate issues of over- and under-use. On pastures that indeed are grazed, increasing livestock density is expected to have a negative impact on biodiversity, and consequently the payment amount (Peter et al., 2008; Homburger et al., 2013). Shrub encroachment and re-growth of forest is an issue especially in the Southern parts of the Swiss alpine region and closely linked to under-use and abandonment of pastures (Gellrich et al., 2007; Koch et al., 2013). Shrub encroachment, however, is of lesser importance in the context of this paper because its focus is on alpine pastures that in fact are used for livestock grazing. Pasture management activities such as shrub removal, construction of fences to guide livestock or placement of salt in areas where more grazing would be preferable have been recommended to maintain biodiversity and avoid shrub encroachment (Koch et al., 2013). Effort in pasture management is thus expected to have a positive effect on biodiversity and thus the payment. The most frequently tended livestock species on Swiss alpine pastures are cattle, cows, suckler cows, sheep and goats (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017). Mixed grazing systems with different livestock species, e.g. cattle and sheep, can lead to a better utilization of pastures with diverse structures in terms of vegetation, altitude and slope (Werthemann and Imboden, 1982; Koch et al., 2013). Imfeld-Mueller (2013) provides an overview of typical grazing patters. Sheep often prefer high altitudes and graze selectively. Cattle tend not to move too far from shelters and graze less selectively. Goats are also selective grazers and due to their agility can graze on steep slopes less accessible to cattle. Taking this into account, the hypothesis here is that a combination of livestock species, i.e. cattle with either sheep or goats is likely to have a positive effect on biodiversity levels. 154
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monetary value with the introduction of the results-based scheme. The relationship between yield and the number of different plant species has been characterized as hump-shaped but some exceptions exist (Schneider et al., 2011, 2013). Given the two layers of factors and diverging streams of literature discussed above, it is difficult to derive clear hypotheses on which combination of property rights allocation and type of managing entity is likely to have highest biodiversity levels.
3.2. Private versus common property management Two layers of factors are relevant in the context of private and common property management on Swiss alpine summer pastures. The first builds on the debate around the tragedy of the commons and the second layer is specific to the Swiss context and accounts for historical differences between different property rights regimes of the alps. The classical tragedy of the commons hypothesis articulated by Hardin (1968) suggests that groups of resource users will inevitably overuse a common pool resource. The resulting key recommendation is that sustainable resource use can only be achieved through privatization or state management. In the following decades many counterexamples of successful commons management were identified demonstrating that the tragedy of the commons can be overcome, especially under conditions of well-functioning group internal resource management regimes (Ostrom, 1990; Baland and Platteau, 1996). Contrary to Hardin’s hypothesis, Poteete and Ostrom (2008) argue that communities of organized users indeed achieve more sustainable outcomes than state management or privatization. Slaev and Collier (2018) stress that, between the two extremes of purely private and purely common property, there are many forms of mixed property rights allocations and management forms that deserve more consideration in debates on sustainable resource management. Whether purely private, purely common, or a mix of both property rights and management forms provides the best incentive structure for sustainable natural resource management in a certain case needs to be determined empirically under consideration of the cases’ contextual characteristics. In Switzerland, there are various types of legal entities responsible for managing alps (Lauber et al., 2013). Cooperatives, public organizations, ordinary partnerships, municipality owned alps, and registered societies can all be categorized into the large group of common property while a natural person as legal entity represents private property. In practice however, the management of the pastures can be delegated to an individual despite the alp being a legal entity that falls into the group of common property. Likewise, an alp that is registered as natural person can be managed jointly by the owner as well as other farmers who pay the owner a fee to pasture their livestock there or jointly with an employed herder. These different cases allow for a comparison of four categories: private property with individual management, private property with collective management, common property with management by an individual and finally common property with collective management. Note that management by an individual can include support through the individual’s family. Referring to the differentiation of individual and collective results-based contracts, private property alps who participate in the scheme can be said to have individual contracts and common-property alps have collective contracts. As mentioned above, historical differences between individual and common property alps need to be considered. There are historically grown associations between average yields and private and common property of the pastures. Private alp pastures tend to be smaller in size, located at lower altitudes and can support more livestock per hectare than their common property counterparts (Werthemann and Imboden, 1982). For a subsample of cheese producing alps in the Canton of Bern, Stevenson (1991) finds that alpine pastures with more favorable conditions for cattle grazing, e.g. better soil, better grass conditions and fewer swampy spots, are more likely to be under private than common property. Baur et al. (2007) argue that cantons with lower average carrying capacities on the summer pastures have a larger share of common property pastures. Yet the cause-effect relationship remains unclear, i.e. whether common property was established in areas with less favorable conditions; if common property management has led to pastures with lesser yields; or perhaps common property management improved the pastures but could not compensate for the less favorable conditions at higher altitudes. At this point it is important to keep in mind that yield for agronomic purposes was of key relevance in the past and biodiversity on the alpine pastures only received an explicit
3.3. Social capital Social capital, in the sense of networking and strong social bonds, enhances trust among individuals (Ostrom and Ahn, 2009). Trust in turn decreases transaction costs of cooperation and increases individual’s propensity to invest in collective action (Pretty, 2003). Uphoff (2000) distinguishes between structural and cognitive social capital, the former relating to observable forms of organization, rules and networks that facilitate cooperation by decreasing transaction costs. Cognitive social capital rather refers to norms, attitudes and beliefs that are less easy to observe, but affect individuals’ predispositions toward collective action. Related to natural resources, social capital has, in many different contexts, been found to support resource governance outcomes and enhance ecosystem service flows (Bodin and Crona, 2009). For example, social cohesion, as one dimension of social capital, has been found to be an important factor in collaborative fisheries management (Gutiérrez et al., 2011). In the setting of an Italian mountain community, Notaro and Paletto (2011) find that social capital, in the sense of involvement in community life and voluntary community activities, plays a key role in the production of environmental services. In previous research on Swiss mountain communities, social capital was, inter alia, related to cultural events, village fairs, and local markets (Mühlinghaus and Wälty, 2001). A traditional cultural event specific to the alps is the alp festival which is organized by and for the members of the alp. Building on these previous studies and backed-up through expert interviews in preparation of this research, the hypothesis here is that social capital, measured by the organization of an alp festival, is positively related to biodiversity outcomes. 3.4. Environmental preconditions Natural-geographic factors such as soil type, altitudinal gradient and climate are likely to be relevant determinants of biodiversity but cannot be altered by land managers. Peter et al. (2008) argue that slope and altitude affect management intensity and management intensity in turn affects floristic composition on alpine grasslands. Unfortunately, data on natural-geographic variables is not readily available in the data set used for this study, an issue that needs to be kept in mind in the data analysis. 4. Survey A mail survey was sent to all managers of alpine pastures in the Cantons of Bern and Grisons in September 2016 followed by a reminder to those who had not initially responded (see Fig. 1). Given that Switzerland has four official languages, the survey was made available in German, French and Italian. Much effort was put into precisely translating the survey to allow for comparability of the responses. The Cantons of Bern and Grisons were selected because they traditionally have different types of entities undertaking the management of alpine pastures. While family farms dominate in the Canton of Bern, alpine pastures are mostly managed by cooperatives in Grisons. In total the survey was sent to 1988 managers of alpine pastures and 1008 responses were obtained. This results in a reasonably high response rate of 50.7%. Of the 1008 respondents 84% (845) participate in the results-based scheme. This paper will focus on this subsample of 155
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Fig. 1. Study cantons Bern and Grisons (Bundesamt für Landestopografie swisstopo, 2018).
incrementally increase with pasture size. Interestingly, effort in pasture management is not significant. The omitted livestock category contains alps with only one livestock species. In this comparison group of 311 observations 92% have only cattle, 7% have only sheep and the remaining 1% have horses or bison. The livestock composition dummies reveal that pasturing cattle with sheep and/or goats can have positive effects on biodiversity outcomes compared to the single species farms. The coefficient for cattle and sheep is almost three times as high as the coefficient for cattle and goats. The coefficient for pasturing sheep and goats without cattle is not significant. The coefficients for the three dummies indicating cooperation between land managers are all significant and have a positive sign. The omitted category that these coefficients need to be compared against is private property with individual management. Note that the values of the coefficients increase from private property with collective management over common property with individual management to common property with collective management. The social capital indicator “Alpfestival” is highly significant and has the expected positive sign. The control variable “Bern” for cantonal differences is not significant. The demographic controls in model (2) are mostly non-significant apart from the negative coefficients for a university degree and craftsman, the latter which is only weakly significant. Overall, the models explain roughly 40% of the variation in the data. Post-estimation tests reveal that both models have omitted variables. This is not surprising, given that no natural-geographic variables are included. Moreover, robust standard errors are used to deal with heteroscedasticity. Variance inflation factors in both models are all below 2, indicating that multicollinearity is not a problem.
participants. From the scheme participants, 674 alp managers granted permission to use supplementary data, for research purposes, on their legal entity, their livestock statistics and the amount of biodiversitybased payment they receive for the alpine pasture. Due to missing data on different variables, the sample used in the analyses below contains 429 observations. 279 observations are from the Canton of Bern which corresponds to 20% of all alps participating in the scheme there. The remaining 150 observations are from Grisons and correspond to 30% of the alps participating in the scheme in Grisons. Overall 63.7% of all alps in the Canton of Bern and 78.7% of the alps in Grisons that are listed as recipients of some form of direct payment participate in this scheme (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017). 5. Results 5.1. Descriptive statistics Table 1 provides summary statistics on the variables used in the subsequent analyses. After summary statistics on the dependent variable, the table lists the explanatory variables according to the structure of the theoretical framework discussed in Section 3. Unfortunately, data on natural-geographic characteristics is not available. Fig. 2 shows the distribution of the payment variable in absolute numbers and as log transformed variable. 5.2. Payment as outcome of socio-economic determinants As discussed above, variation in biodiversity-based payments is hypothesized to depend on agronomic management decisions, the degree of cooperation between land managers, as expressed by combinations of private vs. common property and individual vs. collective management, social capital, as well as natural-geographic factors. Table 2 presents two OLS (ordinary least squares) regression models that test the corresponding hypotheses. The second model repeats the first model and additionally includes demographic control variables. Natural-geographic factors are omitted due to lack of data. The dependent variable, LnPayment, is log-transformed so that the coefficients need to be interpreted as percentage changes. Livestock density is highly significant and has the expected negative sign, indicating that biodiversity decreases with increasing livestock density. Pasture size is not significant, indicating that payment does not
6. Discussion and conclusions This paper presents a case study on the results-based scheme for plant biodiversity on Swiss alpine pastures. Payments in the current first cycle of the scheme are based on biodiversity levels measured at the start of the scheme, i.e. reward biodiversity outcomes achieved prior to the beginning of the scheme. The paper empirically investigates whether three sets of variables, namely the agronomic context, different combinations of private vs. common property and individual vs. 156
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics. Variable Biodiversity outcome Payment Biodiversity-based payment in CHF LnPayment Log-transformed variable Payment Agronomic decisions Density13 Standardized livestock units in 2013 per ha Pasturearea Estimated area in ha Effort13 Hours of pasture management per stoss* in 2013 CSG Dummy for cattle, sheep and goats CS Dummy for cattle and sheep CG Dummy for cattle and goats SG Dummy for sheep and goats Property rights and management PrInd Dummy for private property and individual management PrColl Dummy for private property and collective management ComInd Dummy for common property and individual management ComColl Dummy for common property and collective management Social capital Alpfestival Dummy for organization of a traditional festival (Demographic) controls Bern Dummy for canton Bern Male Dummy for sex Elementry Dummy for elementry school as highest level of education Craftsman Dummy for master craftsman diploma as highest level of education University Dummy for university education Age Alp manager’s age
Mean
Std. Dev.
Min
Max
6786.16 8.02
9583.03 1.39
16.50 2.80
75000 11.23
429 429
0.98 328.5 15.91
1.16 2181 55.75
0 1.65 0
8.66 42000 570
49.72
10.50
20
85
Freq.
Per-cent
N
12 20 84 2
2.8 4.66 19.58 0.47
429 429 429 429 429 429 429
146 56 52 175
34.03 13.05 12.12 40.79
429 429 429 429
87
20.28
429
279 400 48 84 14
65.03 96.39 11.37 19.91 13.32
429 429 429 429 422 415
* ’’Stoss” is a roughage consuming livestock unit that is pastured on the alp for 100 days.
shaped relationship was not confirmed by the data. Indeed, ecological research has shown that biodiversity increases with “light” shrub encroachment and only decreases when the shrubs cover more than 50% of the area (Hofer et al., 2013). However, the data on which this finding is based is only from one alp and it is unclear whether the plant species found among the shrubs are also a part of the list of biodiversity indicators that can trigger a payment. The three coefficients for different combinations of property and management are all significant and have a positive sign. Private property with individual management is the omitted category and hence the base for comparison. The data reveal that, on average, the payment is higher on alps that have either common property and/or collective management. The coefficients’ values increase from private property with collective management over common property with individual management, to common property with collective management. At this point, it is important to recall that the payment is based on biodiversity achievements established before the scheme’s start. Based on the two layers of factors discussed in the theoretical framework, several interpretations of these results are possible.
collective management, as well as social capital can explain variation in the biodiversity-based payments. Among the agronomic variables, factors that were found to have a significant positive effect were pasturing cattle and sheep and/or goats rather than a single livestock species. This suggests that the composition of livestock species is indeed important, and that pasturing cattle and other ruminants, in particular sheep, can have positive effects on biodiversity. It is plausible that this is due to the species different grazing behavior (Imfeld-Mueller, 2013; Mack and Flury, 2014). This finding is relevant because the overall number of sheep (measured in the unit “Normalstösse”) grazed on alpine summer pastures decreased by approximately 20% from 2000 to 2016 (Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft, 2017). The variable on effort in pasture management could not help explain the variation in the biodiversity-based payments. Livestock density, as expected, has a significant negative effect on the biodiversitybased payments. An alternative model, not presented here, was tested to check whether there is a non-linear hump-shaped relationship between livestock density and payment. The existence of such a hump-
Fig. 2. Distributions of the variables “Payment” and “LnPayment”. 157
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The data did not reveal significant differences between the two cantons included in the survey. Most of the demographic controls included in the second model were insignificant apart from two education dummies. A shortcoming of the study is that it takes into account only a snapshot of the current management system. Biodiversity levels today may however be a result of a long history of management decisions that are not adequately reflected in the data. Moreover, this study is based on survey data from only two Cantons and thus may fail to address peculiarities that are relevant in other Cantons. Nevertheless, several policy recommendations can be derived from this analysis. The first is that livestock density plays an important role for alpine biodiversity and should be carefully analyzed in biodiversity promoting programs. Indeed, after finalizing the data collection for this study, the biodiversity-based payment was capped to CHF300 per “stoss”. This means that the maximum amount of payment is limited by the alp’s individual carrying capacity which sets constraints on livestock numbers. An interesting question for future evaluations will be whether livestock numbers increased in response to payment cuts due to the cap on alps that initially were below their carrying capacity. In consequence it will be interesting to monitor if biodiversity levels on such alpine pastures change. The second recommendation concerns the positive effects of mixed grazing systems over single species systems. This could be relevant information for alp managers participating in the results-based scheme, especially in view of the decreasing number of sheep that are sent to graze on the alpine pastures. There may be need for more detailed analysis on the potential, strengths and weaknesses of mixed grazing systems as well as awareness raising among alp managers. The investigation of common versus private property and individual versus collective management revealed that the prevailing property and management regime appears to have an effect on biodiversity levels, but the interpretation of the underlying causes remains clouded. The property rights and management systems are complex multifaceted relationships that need to be interpreted with great care. Further research is necessary to investigate in more detail how these systems with their long traditions impact biodiversity and how the introduction of the results-based payment scheme affects future biodiversity levels. A better understanding of these relationships could help improve future policy design.
Table 2 Results for the analysis of biodiversity-based payments. Variables
(1) OLS Payment
(2) OLS Payment
Density13
−0.4532*** (0.0541) −5.37e-06 (2.07e-05) −0.0008 (0.0008) 0.8758*** (0.2845) 1.1765*** (0.2000) 0.4260*** (0.1381) −0.2242 (0.1833) 0.4661** (0.1997) 0.6649*** (0.1846) 1.2698*** (0.1424) 0.4008*** (0.1260) −0.0645 (0.1565)
−0.4390*** (0.0505) −1.03e-05 (1.74e-05) −0.0008 (0.0011) 0.9385*** (0.2637) 1.2306*** (0.2205) 0.4775*** (0.1354) −0.0722 (0.2167) 0.4305** (0.2016) 0.6485*** (0.1831) 1.3143*** (0.1460) 0.4914*** (0.1334) −0.0513 (0.1568) 0.0022 (0.0052) −0.4254 (0.4856) 0.1106 (0.1688) −0.2512* (0.1395) −1.1812** (0.5023) 7.9156*** (0.5344) 409 0.4342
Pasturearea Effort13 CSG CS CG SG PrColl ComInd ComColl Alpfestival Bern Age Male Elementry Craftsman University Const Obs r-squared
7.6189*** (0.1896) 429 0.4083
Robust standard errors in parentheses. *** p < 0.01. ** p < 0.05. * p < 0.1.
Declarations of interest
From today’s perspective with high appreciation of biodiversity, the findings can be interpreted as supportive of the hypothesis put forward by Poteete and Ostrom (2008) that communities of organized users achieve more sustainable outcomes than private owners. The cooperatives in this case study are long standing groups with governance regimes that have evolved over decades or even centuries, a characteristic that has often been found to support collective action (Ostrom, 1990). Yet, in former times before biodiversity was valued as today, the interpretation may have been vise-versa especially if high biodiversity levels are associated with low yields. However, the differences observed in the analysis may also be due to the historically grown structural differences between private and common property alps. For example, it is possible that the property rights are simply mediating altitude which could not be controlled for in the analysis. The question which factor or which combination of factors is indeed driving this result cannot be resolved at this point and requires further research. The positive effect of the social capital indicator “Alpfestival” is in line with previous findings that social bonds and trust between actors have a positive effect on natural resource governance outcomes (Bodin and Crona, 2009). Alpfestivals, per se, are a type of structural social capital, but it is likely that cognitive social capital is reinforced when the traditions closely tied to the resource are fostered by the resource user group.
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