The importance of equity in payments to encourage coexistence with large mammals.

Large mammals often impose significant costs such as livestock depredation or crop foraging on rural communities, and this can lead to the retaliatory killing of threatened wildlife populations. One conservation approach-payments to encourage coexistence (PEC)-aims to reduce these costs through financial mechanisms, such as compensation, insurance, revenue sharing, and conservation performance payments. Little is known about the equitability of PEC, however, despite its moral and instrumental importance, prevalence as a conservation approach, and the fact that other financial tools for conservation are often inequitable. We used examples from the literature to examine the capability of PEC-as currently perceived and implemented-to be inequitable. We recommend improving the equitability of current and future schemes through the cooperative design of schemes that promote compensatory equity and greater consideration of conservation performance payments and by changing the international model for funding PEC to reduce global coexistence inequalities. New and existing programs must address issues of equitability across scales to ensure that conservation efforts are not undermined by diminished social legitimacy.

Importancia de la equidad de pago para alentar la coexistencia con mamíferos mayores Resumen Con frecuencia, los grandes mamíferos acarrean costes importantes para las comunidades rurales, como resultado de la depredación del ganado o por daños a cultivos, lo que puede derivar en la caza de cierta fauna amenazada como represalia. Una de las posibles estrategias para la protección de esta fauna-los llamados 'pagos para alentar la coexistencia' (PEC por sus siglas en inglés)-busca reducir estos costes a través de mecanismos financieros como los seguros de compensación, el reparto de ingresos y el 'pago por resultados'. Actualmente se conoce muy poco sobre aspectos relacionados con la equidad en relación a los PECs, a pesar de la importancia moral e instrumental de este asunto, y de la prevalencia de estos instrumentos, especialmente considerando que otras herramientas financieras para la conservación suelen no ser equitativas. En este artículo usamos ejemplos de la literatura para examinar la (in)equidad potencial de los PECs - de acuerdo a como están siendo percibidos e implementados actualmente. En las conclusiones, recomendamos que los programas actuales y futuros sean mejorados mediante diseños cooperativos que promuevan la equidad compensatoria y una mayor consideración del pago por resultados de conservación. Así mismo, debe cambiarse modelo internacional de financiamiento de los PECs para reducir las desigualdades globales en cuanto a la coexistencia con grandes mamíferos. Tanto los programas nuevos como los ya existentes deben abordar los temas de equidad a todas las escalas para asegurar que los esfuerzos de conservación no se vean perjudicados por una legitimidad social disminuida.

How to make complexity look simple? Conveying ecosystems restoration complexity for socio-economic research and public engagement.

Ecosystems degradation represents one of the major global challenges at the present time, threating people's livelihoods and well-being worldwide. Ecosystem restoration therefore seems no longer an option, but an imperative. Restoration challenges are such that a dialogue has begun on the need to re-shape restoration as a science. A critical aspect of that reshaping process is the acceptance that restoration science and practice needs to be coupled with socio-economic research and public engagement. This inescapably means conveying complex ecosystem's information in a way that is accessible to the wider public. In this paper we take up this challenge with the ultimate aim of contributing to making a step change in science's contribution to ecosystems restoration practice. Using peatlands as a paradigmatically complex ecosystem, we put in place a transdisciplinary process to articulate a description of the processes and outcomes of restoration that can be understood widely by the public. We provide evidence of the usefulness of the process and tools in addressing four key challenges relevant to restoration of any complex ecosystem: (1) how to represent restoration outcomes; (2) how to establish a restoration reference; (3) how to cope with varying restoration time-lags and (4) how to define spatial units for restoration. This evidence includes the way the process resulted in the creation of materials that are now being used by restoration practitioners for communication with the public and in other research contexts. Our main contribution is of an epistemological nature: while ecosystem services-based approaches have enhanced the integration of academic disciplines and non-specialist knowledge, this has so far only followed one direction (from the biophysical underpinning to the description of ecosystem services and their appreciation by the public). We propose that it is the mix of approaches and epistemological directions (including from the public to the biophysical parameters) what will make a definitive contribution to restoration practice.

Integrated cost-effectiveness analysis of agri-environmental measures for water quality.

This paper presents an application of integrated methodological approach for identifying cost-effective combinations of agri-environmental measures to achieve water quality targets. The methodological approach involves linking hydro-chemical modelling with economic costs of mitigation measures. The utility of the approach was explored for the River Dee catchment in North East Scotland, examining the cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) pollutants. In-stream nitrate concentration was modelled using the STREAM-N and phosphorus using INCA-P model. Both models were first run for baseline conditions and then their effectiveness for changes in land management was simulated. Costs were based on farm income foregone, capital and operational expenditures. The costs and effects data were integrated using 'Risk Solver Platform' optimization in excel to produce the most cost-effective combination of measures by which target nutrient reductions could be attained at a minimum economic cost. The analysis identified different combination of measures as most cost-effective for the two pollutants. An important aspect of this paper is integration of model-based effectiveness estimates with economic cost of measures for cost-effectiveness analysis of land and water management options. The methodological approach developed is not limited to the two pollutants and the selected agri-environmental measures considered in the paper; the approach can be adapted to the cost-effectiveness analysis of any catchment-scale environmental management options.

Application of a value-based equivalency method to assess environmental damage compensation under the European Environmental Liability Directive.

The Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) establishes a framework of liability based on the 'polluter-pays' principle to prevent and remedy environmental damage. The ELD requires the testing of appropriate equivalency methods to assess the scale of compensatory measures needed to offset damage. The aim of this paper is to contribute to fill the existing knowledge gap on the application of the value equivalency approach for damage compensation in this context. We analyze the toxic spill damaging the Doñana National Park (Spain) in 1998. The welfare losses associated with the resource damage are estimated using non-market valuation and compared to the value of the compensatory measures taken after the accident. Our results show that the in-kind compensation may have been insufficient to offset the welfare losses. We conclude that a more comprehensive knowledge of the human welfare effects caused by environmental damage is of substantial importance to determine compensatory remediation, as insufficient information in this respect can lead to erroneous decisions causing loss to society.