Can Payments for Ecosystem Services Improve the Management of Natura 2000 Sites? A Contribution to Explore Their Role in Italy

Abstract

Financing protected areas is crucial for guaranteeing the flow of ecosystem services (ES) provided by natural and semi-natural ecosystems, which are the basis of human well-being. In the last two decades, together with traditional conservation tools, innovative instruments, such as PES (Payment for Ecosystem Services), have been proposed and implemented all over the world in order to improve management effectiveness in biodiversity conservation. In this paper we identified and categorized 33 PES case studies in 19 Natura 2000 sites developing the hypothesis that a PES approach may contribute to improving the effectiveness of conservation actions at different spatial and administrative levels. We found that in these areas, farmers and foresters often allow the maintenance of natural and semi-natural ecosystems through their economic activity. Through PES schemes their important role can be formally acknowledged, both in environmental and economic terms. PES schemes are also a tool for involving more stakeholders, particularly local companies, residents and tourists in conservation actions. So PES can actually improve Natura 2000 sites' management and increase the availability of financial resources in favor of conservation actions. However, careful attention must to be paid to the supporting role of public authorities, generally crucial for the success of a PES.

Evaluation of the Operational Environment Factors of Nature Conservation Policy Implementation: Cases of Selected EU and Non-EU Countries

“…Noted innovative financing mechanisms with high potential in the analyzed countries include grants or loan schemes, public/private partnership and PES. In other studies (e.g., [71][72][73]) PES specifically has shown high potential as a mechanism to generate funding for PAs and nature conservation in general and therefore could be applied also in our analyzed countries; especially as those kinds of innovative mechanism already exist. Such mechanisms definitely offer the greatest chance of substantially increasing PA funding in the future.…”

Opinions towards the water‐related Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes: The stakeholders’ point of view

“…The general provisions of the Legislative Decree n°34/2018 are in line with the objectives of the new European Union (EU) Forest Strategy (2013) aimed at promoting and enhancing the ecosystem services of European forests. In this context, many projects and proposals based on innovative tools of environmental governance are rapidly developing in Italy such as the Italian Network of Ecosystem Service Partnership and some PES schemes implemented at regional and local level (Pellegrino et al 2016;Marino and Pellegrino 2018). In particular, Gatto et al (2009) for the Italian context described three main types of PES: (1) water tariffs (payments from water end-users are used by service suppliers for forest management interventions aimed to service provision); (2) wild mushroom permits (payments received by the sale of mushroom permits are used for forest tending operations); (3) adventure parks (payments received from tickets are used for forest management interventions aimed at providing the recreational activity).…”

Inner peripheries: dealing with peripherality and marginality issues within the European policy framework

“…The environmental relevance of the Inner Peripheries should be valorised through re-establishing traditional uses (Burton & Riley 2018), enhancing the ecosystem services originated by natural capital (e.g. Marino & Pellegrino 2018), or even promoting the natural and cultural heritages in such contexts. These interventions could be financed by the 4th Rural Development Priority and the 6th Cohesion Policy Thematic Objective.…”