Special issue: Ecosystem services and rural land management

environmental science & policy 32 (2013) 1–4

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Editorial

Special issue: Ecosystem services and rural land management Order of papers 1. Henk J. Westhoek, Koen P. Overmars and Henk van Zeijts. The provision of public goods by agriculture: critical questions for effective and efficient policy making. 2. Frans J. Sijtsma, C. Martijn van der Heide and Arjen van Hinsberg. Beyond monetary measurement: How to evaluate projects and policies using the ecosystem services framework. 3. Carolina Tagliafierro, Alberto Longo, Veerle van Eetvelde, Marc Antrop and George Hutchinson. Landscape economic valuation by integrating landscape ecology into landscape economics. 4. Teresa Pinto-Correia, Catarina Machado, Filipe Barroso, Paolo Picchi, Nadine Turpin, Jean Paul Bousset, Nejma Chabab and Yves Michelin. How do policy options modify landscape amenities? An assessment approach based on public expressed preferences. 5. Gabriele Mack, Thomas Walter and Christian Flury. Seasonal Alpine Grazing Trends in Switzerland: Economic Importance and Impact on Biotic Communities. 6. Saulo Rodrigues-Filho, Diego P. Lindoso, Marcel Bursztyn, Floor Brouwer, Nathan Debortoli and Vanessa M. de Castro. Regional Sustainability Contrasts in Brazil as indicated by the Compass of Sustainability – CompasSus. 7. Johannes Kros, Theodorus J.A. Gies, Jan Cees H. Voogd and Wim de Vries. Efficiency of agricultural measures to reduce nitrogen deposition in Natura 2000 sites.

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Provision of ecosystem goods and services

In addition to commodity outputs, agriculture provides society with a wide range of non-commodity outputs: it produces and maintains open space, cultural landscape, wildlife habitat, animal welfare, environmental amenities for recreation and tourism, food safety and security, traditional techniques and settlements (Randall, 2007). This is acknowledged in the concept of multifunctional agriculture, that has been fully acquired by the political and scientific community. A key aspect in the maintenance of agricultural multifunctional dimension is the identification and assessment of such outputs, of their role in society’s well-being and in resource

allocation among conflicting claims. Although valued (and in most cases, vital to human life), there is no regulating mechanism (like markets for commodity products) to steer agriculture non-commodity production and consumption towards optimal levels. This is clearly a transdisciplinary problem: the integration of knowledge and methodologies of different disciplines is paramount to improve our understanding of the complex ecosystem functions and processes and the effects that policy actions may have on them in terms of changes in quality and quantity of goods and services provided (Randall, 2007). The concept of ecosystem services has emerged as a model for linking the functioning of ecosystems to human welfare (Fisher et al., 2009) and has been widely adopted to convey the idea that ecosystems are socially valuable (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007). However, a generally agreed upon classification scheme for ecosystem services has not been yet outlined, nor seems advisable: the dynamic complexity and specificity of ecosystem services should direct researchers towards several different types of classification schemes, taking into account that ecosystem services are linked to social systems and, then, to the specific decision context (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007). A very well-known definition is Daily’s (1997), which states: ‘‘Ecosystem services are the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfil human life. . .’’ ‘‘Ecosystem services are the actual life-support functions, such as cleansing, recycling, and renewal and they confer many intangible aesthetic and cultural benefits as well’’. But they remain mostly undervalued (Daily, 1997). Other definitions, like in Costanza et al. (1997) and MA (2005), refer the services to the benefits human populations derive, directly or indirectly, from ecosystem functions. Boyd and Banzhaf (2007) argue that processes and functions are not the ecosystem services, but the ecological components directly consumed or enjoyed by humans are. Such services are directly consumed components (structure included). Services and benefits are not identical, that means recreation, for instance, is not a service but a benefit produced by multiple ecosystem services (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007). de Groot et al. (2002) provide a classification scheme for ecosystem functions, to which ecosystem services are linked.

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environmental science & policy 32 (2013) 1–4

Ecosystem functions are ‘‘the capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy human needs, directly or indirectly’’. They can be grouped in four primary categories (regulation, habitat, production and information functions) and can provide specific goods and services, whose associated value or importance can be classified in ecological, socio-cultural and economic. All definitions remark an important characteristic of ecosystem services, the ‘‘benefit dependence’’ (Boyd and Banzhaf, 2007), which means that an ecosystem service will be identified and defined on the basis of the benefits of interest, what is being valued, monitored or measured, as well as who are the beneficiaries. Without human beneficiaries, ecosystem components, functions or processes are not services. This is a particular point of discussion. In fact, different individuals (stakeholders) may perceive different benefits from the same ecosystem service, at times even conflicting.

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Measuring ecosystem goods and services

The emphasis on human well-being has introduced and strengthened the economic perspective in ecosystem assessment and management. Although such an anthropocentric perspective might seem too limiting, as focusing on ecosystem aspects that are important to humans, the ecosystem services approach in reality has represented a vast improvement in terms of attention towards ecosystems and integration of approaches (Brown et al., 2007). Promoting ‘‘work at the interface of ecology and economics’’ (Turner and Daily, 2008), it has indeed contributed to transform the way people perceive environmental issues. Since its inception in the early 1990s, in fact, the discussion on ecosystem services highlighted the ‘‘integrating spirit’’ of this concept (Bockstael et al., 1995), focussing on its two dimensions: the functioning of ecosystems and the effects on it of human actions, the value society associates to such ecosystems’ services and the best way to express this value to make it explicit. Nonetheless, research on ecosystem services evolved either towards ecological or economic modelling, with ecological models mostly confining humans to the role of ‘‘exogenous shocks’’ and economic models mostly oversimplifying the ecological component and its interrelation with the human (Bockstael et al., 1995). More recently, the integrating perspective of the ecosystem services concept seems to be gaining new interest and attention and more research moves beyond classic conservation approaches (Goldman and Tallis, 2009). Over the past decade, much scientific investigation has been carried on under the umbrella of ecosystem services perspective, producing an impressive number of papers (Fisher et al., 2009). A boost in this direction is mainly coming from the demand of the policy makers for transdisciplinarity to address more effectively the complex matter of ecosystem degradation. Indeed, ecosystem services approach proves beneficial in natural resource assessment: a literature review (Goldman and Tallis, 2009) on research projects, that have adopted it, shows that they manage to address all the major threats and

effectively identify conservation measures and financial tools to implement them. With ‘‘The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’’ (MA, 2005) the ecosystem services perspective has been firmly put on the policy agenda as well (Gomez-Baggethun et al., 2010). It informs, for instance, ‘‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’’ (TEEB, 2010) study, launched by the European Commission in 2007, at the G8+5 environment ministers meeting, which further promotes the economic dimension in global biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation assessment and management: ‘‘economic thinking’’ is to be incorporated in environmental protection by ‘‘including explicit recognition, efficient allocation, and fair distribution of the costs and benefits of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources’’ (TEEB, 2010). The European Commission adopts an ecosystem services – based approach also in the EU 2020 Biodiversity strategy to protect and restore biodiversity, mostly by enhancing the positive contribution of agriculture and forestry (European Commission, 2011). Indeed, in Europe many ecosystems and their services have been degraded, largely as a result of land fragmentation. Ecosystem degradation comes at a cost for society as a whole and in particular for economic sectors that directly depend on them. This cost is to be incorporated in decision making and accounting and confronted with the cost of actions to halt such losses (TEEB, 2010; European Commission, 2011). This is paramount to correct malfunctioning allocating mechanisms (political and economic) that have encouraged so far inefficient use or even destruction of the natural ecosystems. Market based instruments for conservation such as Markets for Ecosystem Services and so-called Payments for Ecosystem Services schemes are increasingly gaining ground in the economic agenda of political institutions. ‘‘We do not protect what we do not value’’ (Myers and Reichert, 1997, pag.xix) and people do not value what they do not know or understand. This is a call for scientists to pursue the knowledge of the global environment but also to translate this information to the general public and policymakers, in ways that will prompt a more active preservation of natural resources. Along this line, the special issue explores the public goods and services provided by agriculture (e.g. environmental quality, water management, landscape features, adaptation to climate change, food security). It will identify policies promoting the provision of such ecosystem services, and the interrelations of agricultural systems with multifunctionality of land use are identified. It will also emphasize how agriculture can turn into a territorial perspective and strengthen its provision of ecosystem services. Methodologies to assess social demand for goods and services are identified. Examples are presented of the design and application of social cost-benefit analysis to support policy.

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The special issue

The special issue builds on the International Conference on Integrated Assessment of Agriculture and Sustainable Development; Setting the Agenda for Science and Policy (AgSAP)

environmental science & policy 32 (2013) 1–4

(Van Ittersum et al., 2009), that was held in The Netherlands in March 2009. The seven papers presented address different aspects of the on-going discussion on ecosystem services from agriculture. In a political perspective, the first two papers consider how the public intervention can improve the provision of public goods by agriculture and the role researchers can play in the process. The inherent fluctuation of such provision in time and space is a source of market failure in adjusting it at socially optimal levels. Westhoek et al. outline the potential direction for more efficient and effective policies to provide the desired level of public goods by addressing some policy relevant questions about the actual and the desired level of public goods. The role of researchers in this context is to support policy makers with information on actual and potential future level of public goods provision, relaxing the information constrains that represent a relevant limitation in the policymaking process. Policy-making support tools are specifically discussed and compared in the following paper of Sijtsma et al., which analyses pros and cons of evaluation techniques as CostBenefit Analysis (CBA) and Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) in the context of valuation and evaluation of agricultural and natural ecosystem services. To assist decision-makers in the choice between competing alternatives they propose and describe a carefully designed combination of CBA and MCA, the MultiCriteria Cost-Benefit Analysis (MCCBA), which is proposed as an appropriate tool when the ecosystem service framework is adopted to broaden the evaluation context. The landscapes produced and maintained by agricultural activities among the ecosystem services is where the perception of individuals plays a fundamental role in the analysis. The two papers of Tagliafierro et al. and Pinto-Correia et al. apply individual preference-based methodologies to provide policy-makers with insights on people expectations towards future evolution of their territory. The former integrate landscape ecological indicators and a Choice Experiment in a multidisciplinary approach to assess the economic value that people attach to different landscape attributes. The latter present preliminary results of the application of the Landscape Amentity Model (LAM), a landscape amenities evaluation tool developed with the aim of investigating the ability of a certain landscape to support cultural and amenity functions. The social and economic dimension of ecosystems associated with traditional agricultural activities is remarked in the paper of Mack et al., that analyses the actual and potential effects, in environmental, economic and social terms, of policy interventions on the multifunctional services provided by the seasonal alpine grazing system in Switzerland. As actual transhumance payments show not effective in preventing a decrease in the number of summered animals, the maintenance of open landscape and the existence and variety of species are being affected, threatening the provision of multifunctional services and rural development itself linked to this agricultural systems. The notion of ecosystem services cuts across ecology and economy and calls for more integrated approaches of science and the sustainability of the ecosystem services is another

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important aspect of the discussion. This is the focus of Rodrigues-Filho et al.’s paper with the aim of suggesting a more operational approach to sustainability assessment, the Compass of Sustainability (CompasSus), which integrates in an operational perspective the weak and strong sustainability concepts. In their paper, they explain how CompasSus is built on existing assessment methodologies and test it on the Brazilian case. The paper of Kros et al. concludes the special issue remarking the importance of a comprehensive perspective in ecosystem services planning. Modelling spatially explicit farm data to predict atmospheric emissions of ammonia and subsequent deposition in the Natura 2000 sites of the case study area, the authors assess the efficiency of different abatement measures and conclude that reductions of N deposition to a level below critical loads can only be achieved with the support of national and international emission reductions.

references

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Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), 2005. http:// www.maweb.org/en/Index.aspx. Myers, J.P., Reichert, J.S., 1997. Perspectives on nature’s services. In: Daily, G.C. (Ed.), Nature’s Services. Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington D.C., USA. Randall, A., 2007. A consistent valuation and pricing framework for non-commodity outputs: progress and prospects. Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment 120, 21–30. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), 2010. ‘‘Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature’’. Synthesis Report. Downloaded in October 2011 at http:// www.teebweb.org/InformationMaterial/TEEBReports/tabid/ 1278/Default.aspx. Turner, R.K., Daily, G.C., 2008. The ecosystem services framework and natural capital conservation. Environmental Resource Economics 39, 25–35. Van Ittersum, M.K., J. Wolff and H.H. van Laar (Eds.), (2009). Proceedings of the Conference on Integrated Assessment of

Agriculture and Sustainable Development: Setting the Agenda for Science and Policy.(AgSAP, 2009).

Guest Editor Floor Brouwer LEI Wageningen UR, The Netherlands Guest Editors Carolina Tagliafierro George Hutchinson Institute of Agri-Food and Land Use, Queen’s University of Belfast, United Kingdom 1462-9011/$ – see front matter # 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2013.05.005