Offered Papers Theme B: Grassland and the Environment

Description

Agriculture plays an important role in protecting the biodiversity of the rural environment. Since the reform of the EU's common agricultural policy (CAP) in 1992, agri-environment schemes have been supported by the EU within the framework of the second pillar of CAP. In these programmes, farmers were rewarded for environmental services. The predominantly action-oriented programmes imply particular disadvantages; they tend to lack economic efficiency and to fail with regard to the conservation and improvement of biodiversity (Kleijn & Sutherland, 2003; Wilhelm, 1999). This situation was the starting point for the development of an outcome-based payment scheme. We focus on the process of defining ecological goods - in particular with regard to grassland - as the results of ecological services, which are to be remunerated by means of this innovative payment system.

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Species-Rich Grassland as an Ecological Good in an Outcome-Based Payment Scheme

Agriculture plays an important role in protecting the biodiversity of the rural environment. Since the reform of the EU's common agricultural policy (CAP) in 1992, agri-environment schemes have been supported by the EU within the framework of the second pillar of CAP. In these programmes, farmers were rewarded for environmental services. The predominantly action-oriented programmes imply particular disadvantages; they tend to lack economic efficiency and to fail with regard to the conservation and improvement of biodiversity (Kleijn & Sutherland, 2003; Wilhelm, 1999). This situation was the starting point for the development of an outcome-based payment scheme. We focus on the process of defining ecological goods - in particular with regard to grassland - as the results of ecological services, which are to be remunerated by means of this innovative payment system.