Cost-effectiveness of managing Natura 2000 sites: an exploratory study for Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland

Abstract

Natura 2000 sites are expected to assure the long-term survival of Europe's most valuable and threatened species and habitats. It follows that successful management of the sites is of great importance. Next to goal attainment, cost-effectiveness is increasingly recognised as a key requirement for gaining social and political acceptance for costly conservation measures. We identify and qualitatively examine issues of cost-effectiveness related to the design and implementation of management measures in Natura 2000 sites in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. Given the wide variety of management design and implementation options within the four countries, our study is purely of an 123Biodivers Conserv (2010) 19:2053-2069 DOI 10.1007 exploratory nature. We derive recommendations for improving the cost-effectiveness of management in Natura 2000 sites and for future research. Examples of policy recommendations include guaranteeing the availability of funds for longer periods, and ensuring the appropriate allocation of funds between the different tasks of designing and implementing management plans. Further research should examine the cost-effectiveness of controversial suggestions such as, for example, more tailored payment schemes for conservation measures that result in higher ecological outputs but are costly to administer. Moreover, more research is needed to better understand how rules for administrations, as well as rules and governance structures for tasks within administrations, should be designed.

The Impact of Information Provision on Agglomeration Bonus Performance: An Experimental Study on Local Networks

“…Encouraging farmers to enrol adjacent land parcels which are of high ecological value by attaching greater sign-up payments to them has been shown to generate higher environmental benefits than scenarios where the incentives are not spatially differentiated (Wätzold et al 2010). Land management of geographically proximate (or even adjacent) parcels/properties for creating contiguous habitat of at least a critical minimum size, and establishing connections between patches to create habitat corridor linkages facilitating species mobility is beneficial for biodiversity conservation (Margules and Pressey 2000;Dallimer et al 2010).…”

Estimating costs of nature management in the European Union : Exploration modelling for PBL’s Nature Outlook

“…Therefore, largest by-country differences in construction costs are found in respectively NFW, WWN and SCI. Costs of nature management can be divided into different categories such as production costs, implementation costs and decision making costs (Wätzold et al, 2010). Recurrent management costs can be considered production costs, since Wätzold et al (2010) define such as "the costs of the actual conservation measures that are carried out including foregone economic benefits due to restriction on economic activities".…”

“…Costs of nature management can be divided into different categories such as production costs, implementation costs and decision making costs (Wätzold et al, 2010). Recurrent management costs can be considered production costs, since Wätzold et al (2010) define such as "the costs of the actual conservation measures that are carried out including foregone economic benefits due to restriction on economic activities". Examples of production costs are costs for setting up and maintaining fences and foregone profits of farmers due to restrictions on farming for reasons of conservation.…”

The experience of ecological fiscal transfers: Lessons for REDD+ benefit sharing

“…In general, a policy option is more cost effective relative to another either if an equal conservation outcome is attained at lower total costs or if its conservation outcome is higher for given total costs (Wätzold et al 2010). …”