Privatisation of biodiversity: Who can sell ecosystem services?

Environmental Law and Management

Volumn 25, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 12-20

  Soh, Walters N ^a   Reid, Colin T ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE   (United Kingdom)

^b Department of Environmental Law ^*  (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIODIVERSITY; CONSERVATION PLANNING; ECOSYSTEM SERVICE; FORESTRY; HOLISTIC APPROACH; LAND MANAGEMENT; PRIVATIZATION; RURAL DEVELOPMENT;

EID: 84881173239     PISSN: 10676058     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. See L Raymond, S K Fairfax 'The "shift to privatization" in land conservation: a cautionary essay' (2002) 42 Natural Resources Journal 599-639;
2. J Salzman 'Creating markets for ecosystem services: notes from the field' (2005) 80 New York University Law Review 870-961.
3. eg H Dunn Payments for Ecosystem Services (Defra Evidence and Analysis Series Paper 4 Defra London 2011);
4. Defra Biodiversity 2020: A Strategy for England's Wildlife and Ecosystem Services (Defra London 2011) 24;
5. HM Government The Natural Choice: Securing the Value of Nature (Cm 8082, 2011);
6. W J Sutherland and others 'The identification of priority policy options for UK nature conservation' (2010) 47 Journal of Applied Ecology 955-65;
7. and URS Scott Wilson Barriers and Opportunities to the Use of Payments for Ecosystem Services (Defra London 2011).
8. This target was adopted by the EU at the Gothenburg Summit in 2001 (Presidency Conclusions (SN 200/1/01 Rev I) para 31) embedded in the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme (Dec. 1600/2002/EC) [2002] OJ L242/I art 6 and repeated by UK ministers on many occasions, eg Foreword to Defra Conserving Biodiversity: The UK Approach (Defra on behalf of UK Biodiversity Partnership London 2007).
9. For example the fact that the condition of many designated sites is improving, although still not good: see the Official Statistics Publication for Scotland on the Proportion of Scotland's Protected Sites in Favourable Condition 2012 http://www.snh.gov. uk/docs/A7l4847.pdf and http://www.sssi.naturalengland org.uk/Special/sssi/reportAction. cfm?Report=sdrtl5&Category= N&Reference=0.
10. See also Defra UK Biodiversity Indicators in Your Pocket 2012: Measuring Progress Towards Halting Biodiversity Loss (Defra London 2012) for some encouraging signs of the progress made.
11. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee Halting Biodiversity Loss (13th Report of 2007-08: HC 743) and Halting Biodiversity Loss: Government Response (2nd Special Report of 2008-09: HC 239).
12. See generally C T Reid Nature Conservation Law (3rd edn W Green London 2009) esp ch 1.6.
13. For an overview see G A Wilson Multifunctional Agriculture: A Transition Theory Perspective (CABI Wallingford 2007).
14. See eg N Ravenscroft, B Taylor 'Public engagement in new productivism' in M Lobley, M Winter (eds) What is Land For?: 'The Food, Fuel and Climate Change Debate' (Earthscan London 2009) 213-29.
15. Defra Securing a Healthy Natural Environment: An Action Plan for Embeddmgan Ecosystems Approach (Defra London 2007).
16. Reid Nature Conservation Law (n 6) 361-65.
17. E Comerford, D Molloy and P Paul Morling Financing Nature in an Age of Austerity (RSPB 2010) 50-57.
18. See eg Defra Securing a Healthy Natural Environment (n 10) II.
19. Similar issues have already arisen in other areas of environmental law, eg in relation to pollution taxes (see M Sagoff 'Economic theory and environmental law' (1981) 79 Michigan Law Review 1393-419) and emission trading schemes.
20. See G Winter 'The climate is no commodity: taking stock of the emissions trading system' (2010) 22 Journal of Environmental Law 1-25
21. and C T Reid 'The privatisation of biodiversity? Possible new approaches to nature conservation law in the UK' (2011) 23 Journal of Environmental Law 203-31.
22. S Whatmore, R Munton and T Marsden 'The rural restructuring process: emerging divisions of agricultural property rights' (1990) 24 Regional Studies 235-45.
23. M Winter 'Revisiting land ownership and property rights' in H D Clout (ed) Contemporary Rural Geographies, Land, Property, and Resources in Britain: Essays in Honour of Richard Munton (Routledge London 2007);
24. A Butler, M Winter 'Agricultural tenure in England and Wales 2007' (CRPR Research Report No 24 University of Exeter Exeter March 2008).
25. In relation to schemes relating to watershed protection alone, a report in 2010 identified 288 payment programmes 'in varying states of activity' around the world: T Stanton and others State of Watershed Payments: An Emerging Marketplace (Ecosystem Marketplace 2010) http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/ files/doc-2438.pdf.
26. Valuable studies include: T Greiber, S Schiele (eds) Governance of Ecosystem Services: Lessons. Learned from Cameroon, China, Costa Rica, and Ecuador (IUCN Gland 2011);
27. T Greiber (ed) Payments for Ecosystem Services: Legal and Institutional Frameworks (IUCN Gland 2009).
28. Convention on Biological Diversity COP 5 (2000) Decision V/6 para I http://www.cbd. int/decision/cop/default,shtml?id=7l48.
29. United Nations 'Millennium Ecosystem Assessment' (2005) http://www.unep.org/maweb/en/index.aspx.
30. HM Government The UK Government Sustainable Development Strategy: Securing the Future (Cm 6467 2005).
31. Defra Securing a Healthy Natural Environment (n 10) 7.
32. UK National Ecosystem Assessment The UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis of the Key Findings (UNEP-WCMC Cambridge 2011).
33. HM Government The Natural Choice (n 2).
34. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature: A synthesis of the approach, conclusions and recommendations of TEEB (2010) 7 and Annex 2 and the sources referred to there. See generally the website of the TEEB project http://teebweb.org.
35. See eg P Lowe and others 'Strategic land use for ecosystem services' in M Lobley, M Winter (eds) What is Land For?: 'The Food, Fuel and Climate Change Debate' (Earthscan London 2009) 28-29.
36. See eg Defra An Introductory Guide to Valuing Ecosystem Services (Defra London 2007).
37. See also Reid 'The privatisation of biodiversity?' (n 14) 220-22.
38. See C T Reid 'Between priceless and worthless: challenges in using market mechanisms for conserving biodiversity' (2013) 2 Transnational Environmental Law (in press) available at CJO 2012 doi:10.1017/S2047l025l20002l0;
39. D Helm, C Hepburn 'The economic analysis of biodiversity: an assessment' (2012) 28 Oxford Review of Economic Policy 1-21.
40. See the website of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=copr&topic=crp.
41. For an overview of the history and development of the CRP see J B Ruhl, S E Kraft and C L Lant Low and Policy of Ecosystem Services (Island Press Washington DC 2007) 186-92.
42. Farm Services Agency (FSA) 'Fact Sheet: Conservation Reserve Program, General Sign-Up 43' (2012) http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA-File/ gs43factsheet.pdf.
43. Farm Services Agency (FSA) 'Fact Sheet: Conservation Reserve Program' (FSA, February 2013) http://www.fsa.usda.gov/lnternet/FSA-File/crpfactsheet02l3. pdf.
44. The programme aims to conserve native vegetation remnants on private property, and improves on the CRP through its reliance on a robust assessment methodology and reverse auction mechanism to set the price of the contracts. See Department of Sustainability and Environment BushTender: Rethinking Investment for Native Vegetation Outcomes. The Application of Auctions for Securing Private Land Management Agreements (State of Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment 2008) http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/-data/assets/pdf-file/0012/100209/ BushTender-rethinking-investment-web.pdf
45. and G Stoneham and others 'Auctions for conservation contracts: an empirical examination of Victoria's BushTender trial' (2003) 47 Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 477-500.
46. See K H Redford. W M Adams 'Payment for ecosystem services and the challenge of saving nature' (2009) 23 Conservation Biology 785-87.
47. See eg Department of Sustainability and Environment BushTender (n 45) 26-29; Stoneham (n 45) 490.
48. eg the New York City and Catskills Watershed scheme offered to pay farmers $100 per acre every year for up to 15 years to plant native species along streams, but from January 1997 when the scheme started to the autumn of 2000, only about 400 acres had been planted. See G Daily, K Ellison The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable (Island Press V\feshington DC 2002) 80.
49. B Crabtree and others 2010 Review of Goose Management Policy in Scotland (BTO Stirling 2010) http://www.scotland.gov. uk/Resource/Doc/340628/0112833.pdf.
50. Scottish Executive Report of the National Goose Management Review Group: Review of the National Policy Framework for Goose Management in Scotland: Response by the Scottish Executive (Scottish Executive Edinburgh 2005).
51. See eg Crabtree and others (n 50) 7-8; The Scottish Farmer 'Geese strip Islay bare' (Herald & Times Group 19 April 2012) http://www. thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/geese-strip-islay-bare.17353638;
52. Philip Case 'Scottish geese control needs urgent rethink, says NFUS' (Farmers Weekly Interactive 2 August 2012) http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/02/08/ 2012/134277/scottish-geese-control-needs-urgentrethink-says-nfus.htm. Payments under the scheme, incidentally, are currently tied to the number of geese present per hectare: see Crabtree and others (n 50) 146-47.
53. One of the issues with the CRP has been the concerns over 'slippage' - farmers may be ploughing up other land to compensate for land placed in the CRP programme: J Wu 'Slippage effects of the conservation reserve program: reply' (2005) 87 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 251-54, 254;
54. E Lichtenberg, R Smith-Ramirez 'Slippage in conservation cost sharing' (2011) 93 American Journal of Agricultural Economics 113-29, 127-28.
55. A similar concern has also been raised with Mexico's National Payments for Ecosystem Services Program: J M Alix-Garcia, E N Shapiro and K R E Sims 'Forest conservation and slippage: evidence from Mexico's national payments for ecosystem services program' (2012) 88 Land Economics 613-38.
56. For example, for commoners claiming agri-environment payments under environmental friendly schemes such as the Environmental Sensitive Area (ESA) (now superseded by the Environmental Stewardship scheme), only common right holders who are registered as farmers can do so (Natural England Common Land and Shared Grazing: Supplement to the Environmental Stewardship Handbooks (Natural England Sheffield 2011) and Natural England Entry Level Stewardship Environmental Stewardship Handbook (Natural England Sheffield January 2013) 145-46).
57. For example, the Brancaster and Thornham commons in Norfolk are two of the most important wildlife habitats in the UK, with migrating waterfowl populations of European-level significance but with no present-day agricultural use. See C P Rodgers and others Contested Common Land: Environmental Governance Past and Present (Earthscan London 2011) 163-88.
58. See eg R J C Munton, T K Marsden 'Occupancy change and the farmed landscape: an analysis of farm-level trends 1970-85' (1991) 23 Environment and Planning A 499-510.
59. See eg the case of Tutton and Others v A D Walter Ltd [1986] QB 61, where it was held that tenants owe a duty of care to their neighbours if, in carrying out a lawful activity on their land, they destroy the provision of a service which, despite being beneficial to them, was not needed.
60. Scottish Government Rural Development Contracts: Land Managers Options (LMO) Guidance 2008 ('Notes for Guidance' Scottish Government, Edinburgh March 2008) I http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/217663/0058305.pdf.
61. The main scheme in England is the Environmental Stewardship scheme, which is divided into Entry Level and Higher Level schemes (the Environmental Stewardship (England) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/621). In Wales, the main scheme is Glastir, which is a merger of Tir Cynnal, Tir Gofal, Tir Mynydd and the Organic Farming Scheme (Welsh Assembly Government Glastir: New Sustainable Land Management Scheme for Wales (February 2010) http://wales.gov. uk/docs/drah/publications/100407glastirinserten.pdf).
62. Defra Single Payment Scheme Handbook for England 2013 Including the Uplands Tronsitionol Payment (Defra January 2013) 49.
63. Reid Nature Conservation Law (n 6) 371.
64. See eg Scottish Government Rural Development Contracts (Rural Priorities) Succession Guidance (Scottish Government July 2012) http://www.scotland.gov. uk/Resource/0039/00397608.pdf.
65. See eg A Sydenham Commons and Village Greens: The Modern Law (Lime Legal Corsham 2006) 3.2.1-3.2.7.
66. Commons Act 2006 s 9. For more the nature and extent of the different categories of common use rights, see C P Rodgers (n 61) 4-7. See further E H Burn, J Cartwright Cheshire and Burn's Modern Law of Real Property (18th edn OUP Oxford 2011) 705-07.
67. See eg Greiber, Schiele Governance of Ecosystem Services (n 20) 129-39.
68. See generally Rodgers and Others (n 61) 51-68.