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Agro-biodiversity can provide natural insurance to risk averse farmers. We employ a conceptual ecological-economic model to analyze the choice of agrobiodiversity by risk averse farmers who have access to financial insurance. We study the implications for individually and socially optimal agro-ecosystem management and policy design when on-farm agro-biodiversity, through ecosystem processes at higher hierarchical levels, generates a positive externality on other farmers. We show that for the individual farmer natural insurance from agro-biodiversty and financial insurance are substitutes. While an improved access to financial insurance leads to lower agro-biodiversity, the e_ects on the market failure problem (due to the external benefits of on-farm agro-biodiversity) and on welfare are determined by properties of the agro-ecosystem and agro-biodiversity’s external benefits. We derive a specific condition on agro-ecosystem functioning under which, if financial insurance becomes more accessible, welfare in the absence of regulation increases or decreases.
The European Union’s Council Regulation on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development has introduced auctioning as a new instrument for granting agri-environmental payments and awarding conservation contracts for the recent multi-annual budgetary plan. This paper therefore deals with the conception and results of two case study auctions for conservation contracts. Results of two field experiments show much differentiated bid prices in the model-region and budgetary cost-effectiveness gains of up to 21% in the first auction and up to 36% in the repeated auction. Besides these promising results, some critical aspects as well as lessons to be learned will also be discussed in this paper to improve the design and performance of upcoming conservation auctions.
Biodiversity loss could jeopardize ecosystem functioning. Yet, the evidences that support this demonstration have been mostly obtained in aquatic and grassland ecosystems. Howbiodiversity affects ecosystem functioning still remain largely unanswered in forests, particularly in subtropical broad-leaved evergreen forests (EBLF). Tree productivity, among a wealth of forest ecosystem functioning, is of particular interest because it reflects the carbon sink capacity and wood productivity. Biodiversity-productivity relationships have been usually investigated at community level. However, tree-tree interactions occur at small scale. Thus, local neighborhood approach may allow a better understanding of tree-tree interactions and their contributions to the effects of biodiversity on tree productivity / growth rates. This thesis aims to analyze the effects of biodiversity and the abiotic environmental factors on the tree growth rates using both local neighborhood and community-based approaches. Furthermore, tree growth rates vary among different tree species. Functional traits have been related to the species-specific growth rates to understand the effects of species identity. Therefore, I also evaluated the crown- and leaf traits to predict the interspecific difference in growth rates. For a better understanding of the mechanisms that underline the relationships of biodiversity and tree growth rates, data of high solution and along time series is required to scrutinize the tree-tree interactions. Thereupon, I evaluated the applicability of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) in assessing the tree dendrometrics. This thesis was conducted in the Biodiversity Ecosystem Functioning (BEF)–China experiment, which is located in a mountainous subtropical region in southeast China. A total of 40 native broad-leaved tree species were planted. In the first study, I used the local neighborhood approach to analyze how local abiotic conditions (i.e. topographic and edaphic conditions) and local neighborhood (i.e. species diversity and competition by neighborhood) affect the annual growth rates of 6723 individual trees. The second study used the community approach to partition the effects of environmental factors (i.e. topographic and edaphic), functional diversity according to Rao’s quadratic entropy (FDQ) and community weight mean (CWM) of 41 functional traits on community tree growth rates. The main question of the third study was how the species-specific growth rates are related to five crown- and 12 leaf traits.
In the fourth study, I investigated 438 tree individuals for the congruence between the conventional direct field measurements and TLS measurements. It was found that tree growth rates were strongly influenced by the local topographic and edaphic conditions but not affected by the diversity of local neighborhood. In contrast, results obtained by using the community-based approach showed that FDQ and CWMs of various leaf traits rather than abiotic environmental factors had significant impact on the community means of growth rates. Tree-tree interactions already occur in early life stages of trees, which were evidenced by the significant effect of competition by local neighborhood. These findings imply that the effects of abiotic environmental factors may be more evident at local scale and biodiversity effects may vary at different spatial scales. The species-specific growth rates were found to be related to specific leaf traits but not to crown traits and were best explained by both types of traits in combination. This finding supports the niche theory and provides the evidence for using functional diversity to examine the BEF relationships. The TLS-retrieved total tree height, stem diameter at 5 cm above ground, and length and height of the longest branch were highly congruent with those obtained from direct measurements. It indicates that TLS is a promising tool for high resolution, non-destructive analyses of tree structures in young tree plantations. Being one of very few studies to incorporate the individual tree scale in examining the biodiversity-productivity relationships within the BEF researches, this thesis stresses the importance of using individual-tree based approach, functional diversity and TLS to find the evidences of explanatory mechanisms of the observed biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (e.g. tree growth rates) relationships. Biodiversity effects may evolve along the successional stages. Therefore, incorporating the interaction between biodiversity and time in analyzing BEF relationship is also encouraged.
Neben dem Klimawandel und der Verstädterung zählt der Verlust biologischer und kultureller Vielfalt mit unberechenbaren Konsequenzen für die Bereitstellung von Ökosystemdienstleistungen zu den größten Herausforderungen der Zukunft, auch in UNESCO-Biosphärenreservaten, die Modellregionen für nachhaltige Entwicklung sind. Deshalb wurden durch die vorliegende Studie erstmalig Ökosystemdienstleistungen im UNESCO-Biosphärenreservat Schaalsee erfasst und bewertet. Dort sind insgesamt 39 Ökosystemdienstleistungen nachzuweisen, wobei räumliche Unterschiede hinsichtlich der Zonierung zu beobachten sind: Je strenger der Schutzstatus, desto geringer ist die Anzahl an nutzbaren Ökosystemdienstleistungen. Mittels Q-Methode wurden fünf unterschiedliche Werteperspektiven auf die bereitgestellten Ökosystemdienstleistungen identifiziert: 1) Übereinstimmung mit der Biosphärenreservats-Idee, 2) Regionalität mit dem Streitpunkt Kultur, die als a) entbehrlicher Luxus oder b) elementarer Lebensinhalt wahrgenommen wird, 3) Landwirtschaft und Nostalgie sowie 4) Vorsorge durch natürliche Regulierungsleistungen. Alle Perspektiven stimmen darin überein, dass die Vielfalt der Natur und sauberes Trinkwasser sowie die meisten regulierenden Ökosystemdienstleistungen von großer Wichtigkeit sind. Die Ergebnisse der Erfassung können als Grundlage zur weiteren Untersuchung der Ökosystemdienstleistungen im UNESCO Biosphärenreservat Schaalsee verwendet werden.
Agrobiodiversität besitzt vielfältigen ökologischen, ökonomischen und sozio-kulturellen Wert. Sie ist eine grundlegende Voraussetzung für zukünftige Nutzungen und steht gleichzeitig in einem besonderen Verhältnis zu menschlichem Handeln. Zwar basiert Agrobiodiversität auf Natur, sie ist jedoch wesentlich durch landwirtschaftliche Tätigkeiten gestaltet worden und kann ohne weitere Nutzung durch den Menschen nicht erhalten und erneuert werden. Die vorliegende Dissertation analysiert die Gestaltung gesellschaftlicher Naturverhältnisse in der ländlichen Entwicklung am Beispiel der nachhaltigen Nutzung von Agrobiodiversität. Schutz und Nutzung von Agrobiodiversität wird hierfür in einem ersten Schritt als sozial-ökologisches Phänomen konzipiert. Daran schließen sich Analysen auf agrarpolitischer und landwirtschaftlich praktischer Ebene an. Anhand einer Analyse der der Gemeinsamen Agrarpolitik der Europäischen Union (GAP) und im speziellen der Politik zur ländlichen Entwicklung wird deutlich, dass eine programmatische Orientierung an Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung besteht und das Paradigma einer multifunktionalen Landwirtschaft integrierende Ansätze bietet. Diese Ansätze werden jedoch weiterhin vor dem Hintergrund einer unhinterfragten Logik realisiert, die davon ausgeht, dass naturerhaltendes Wirtschaften nicht wettbewerbsfähig sein kann. Die GAP löst somit die hierarchische Trennung zwischen Schutz und Nutzung von Agrobiodiversität nicht auf. Trotz der Wirkmächtigkeit der GAP kann mittels der Fallstudie "Arche-Region Flusslandschaft Elbe" an einem konkreten Beispiel aus der landwirtschaftlichen Praxis dargestellt werden, wie nachhaltige Agrobiodiversitätsnutzung umgesetzt wird. Aus den Ergebnissen der Fallstudie werden abschließend Schlussfolgerungen für eine Weiterentwicklung der Politik zur ländlichen Entwicklung und EU-Agrarpolitik im Allgemeinen abgeleitet.
Ensuring food security and halting biodiversity loss are two of the most pressing global sustainability challenges. Attempts to identify pathways have been dominated with a biophysical-technical focus that provides technical solutions to the integration of food security and biodiversity conservation. The social-political dimension, however, including equity, governance, and empowerment received little to no attention. By focusing on the poorly investigated social-political dimension, this dissertation aimed to identify governance properties that facilitate and impede the integration of food security and biodiversity conservation through an empirical case study conducted in a multi-level governance setting of southwestern Ethiopia. To address the overarching goal of this dissertation, first the author examined how the existing widely discussed food security approaches and agricultural land use framework, land sparing versus land sharing unfold in the local context of southwestern Ethiopia. The finding in this dissertation indicated that the existing global framing of food security approaches as well as frameworks around agricultural land use has limited applicability in on-the-ground realities mainly because landscapes are complex systems that consist of stakeholders with multiple and (often) conflicting interests. This was evident from the finding that local land use preference was not a matter of "either/or", but instead involved mixed features exhibiting properties of both land sparing and land sharing. Moreover, in addition to the biophysical factors embedded in the existing food security approaches and land use frameworks, stakeholders preference involved social factors such as the compatibility of land use strategy with local values and traditions, which are mainly unaccounted in the existing global frameworks. Findings in this dissertation revealed that the existing reductionist analytical framings to the issues of food security and biodiversity conservation seldom address the complexity inherent within and between food security and biodiversity conservation sectors. Second, this dissertation identified governance structural and process related challenges that influence individual as well as integrated achievements of food security and biodiversity conservation goals. The result of the study showed that the governance of food security and biodiversity conservation was characterized by a strongly hierarchical system with mainly linear vertical linkages, lacking horizontal linkages between stakeholders that would transcend administrative boundaries. Furthermore, with regard to the governance process, three key and interdependent categories of governance process challenges namely, institutional misfit, the problem of interplay, and policy incoherence influenced the achievement of individual and integrated goals of food security and were identified. Given the interdependence of these governance challenges, coupled with the complexity inherent in the food security and biodiversity conservation, attempts to achieve the dual goals thus needs an integrative, flexible and adaptive governance system Third, to understand how food security and biodiversity conservation unfold in the future, the author explored future development trajectories for southwestern Ethiopia. Iterative scenario planning process produced four plausible future scenarios that distinctly differed with regard to dominating land use strategies and crops grown, actor constellations and governance mechanisms, and outcomes for food security and biodiversity conservation. Three out of the four scenarios focused on increasing economic gains through intensive and commercial agricultural production. In contrast, one scenario involved features that are widely considered as beneficial to food security and biodiversity conservation, such as agroecological production, diversification practices, and increased social-ecological resilience. In smallholder landscapes such as the one studied here, such a pathway that promises benefits for both food security and biodiversity conservation may need to be given greater emphasis. In order to ensure the integration of food security and biodiversity conservation, recognizing their interdependence and addressing the challenges in a way that fits with the local dynamics is essential. In addition, addressing the food security-biodiversity nexus requires a holistic analytical lens. Moreover, this dissertation indicated that there is a clear need to pay attention to the governance structure that accommodates the diversity of perspectives, enable participation and strong coordination across geographical boundaries, policy domains and governance levels. Finally, this dissertation revealed opportunities to integrate food security and biodiversity through the pro-active management of social-ecological interactions that produce a win-win outcome. The win-win outcome could be achieved in a system that involve properties such as diversification and modern agroecological techniques, smallholders empowerment, emphasize adaptive governance of social-ecological systems, value local knowledge, culture and traditions, and ensure smallholders participation.
Managing increasing environmental risks through agro-biodiversity and agri-environmental policies
(2008)
Agro-biodiversity can provide natural insurance to risk-averse farmers by reducing the variance of crop yield, and to society at large by reducing the uncertainty in the provision of public-good ecosystem services such as e.g. CO2 storage. We analyze the choice of agro-biodiversity by risk-averse farmers who have access to financial insurance, and study the implications for agri-environmental policy design when on-farm agro-biodiversity generates a positive risk externality. While increasing environmental risk leads private farmers to increase their level of on-farm agro-biodiversity, the level of agro-biodiversity in the laissez-faire equilibrium remains inefficiently low. We show how either one of two agri-environmental policy instruments can cure this risk-related market failure: an ex-ante Pigouvian subsidy on on-farm agro-biodiversity and an ex-post compensation payment for the actual provision of public environmental benefits. In the absence of regulation, welfare may increase rather than decrease with increasing environmental risk, if the agroecosystems is characterized by a high natural insurance function, low costs and large external benefits of agro-biodiversity.