Estimating the cost of protecting groundcover on privately managed properties in the Australian rangelands: the case of the West 2000 Plus Enterprise-Based Conservation scheme
A significant quantity of native vegetation and biodiversity remains on privately managed rangeland properties. Due to a lack of appropriate incentives, landholders do not always conserve these resources at a level that society desires. Regulations to conserve native vegetation can impose substantial costs on landholders. Market-Based Instruments have therefore been developed to provide market incentives aimed at achieving conservation at lower costs. We review the application of a Market-Based Instrument scheme, the West 2000 Plus Enterprise-Based Conservation program, which was designed for the Western Division of New South Wales. We estimate the private and social costs of increasing groundcover on privately managed properties, with and without the scheme. The costs are estimated under actual market and climatic conditions, and simulated under a wider range of conditions. The results indicate that costs vary widely across different conservation areas, depending on the location and previous management strategies of the property. The Enterprise-Based Conservation scheme has increased conservation in the region, and the implications from its application are reviewed to assist the further development of Market-Based Instruments.
Combining economic and ecological arguments to value the environmental gains from control of 35 weeds in Australia
The control of weeds provides agricultural, environmental and social benefits. The agricultural gains typically dominate, and many studies have estimated these values. The environmental gains rest on the protection of plant communities from weed invasions, but these benefits have proved hard to value doe to the lack of data from relevant market transactions. An estimate of these gains is now derived from a set of Australia-wide costs to control 35 major weeds affecting the agricultural and forestry industries. Control costs varied closely with the number of threatened special conservation areas, and with the number of threatened plant species, within the distribution of the weeds. Across all agricultural weeds, control costs increased by about $5800 per year for each additional threatened special conservation area, and across all forest weeds, control costs increased by about $800 per year for each additional threatened special conservation area. Across all agricultural and forest weeds, control costs increased by at least $65,000 per year for each additional threatened plant species. Following standard economic assumptions about market transactions, these estimates can be taken as the values of the annual environmental benefits to the community from protecting an extra special conservation area or an extra species - given the budgets available to the weeds managers. These environmental gains alone appear to cover a substantial proportion of the control costs. The marginal estimates of value are extended to cases where many further areas are protected, by introducing certain assumptions about the change in marginal utility, and by using ecological information to help choose between these assumptions. The application and qualifications of these values are discussed.
The Impact and Opportunity Cost of Native Vegetation Regulations: Ten Facts & One Question
Regulations to protect native vegetation on farms have now been enacted in all States of Australia. The general impacts of this kind of legislation can be considered as an opportunity cost reducing potential farm incomes and land values. The consequences can be summarised as a series of ten facts and one question, all of which can be applied generally across the states and regions of Australia, however, there are specific data and examples available from NSW. The facts concern the role of governments and the probability and extent of an economic cost to farmers. The 'question' concerns the remaining issue still to be addressed – How much native vegetation should be protected? There may never be an answer to this question but the trade offs between area protected and opportunity cost must still be explored.
Conservation of native woodland by farmers in Moree Plains Shire, New South Wales
The New South Wales Government introduced the 'Native Vegetation Conservation Act 1998' to protect the native woodland and native grassland of the state. The amounts of native vegetation already conserved prior to the Act, the costs of continued conservation under the Act, and the farmers' wish to conserve or clear, are essential information to assist policy development in this area. To provide this kind of information, fifty-one farmers were interviewed in an important cropping region of the state, Moree Plains Shire. On average, 21.0% of the area of each farm in the sample was native woodland, and another 19.9% was native grassland. Over a quarter of the farms had at least 25% of their land in native woodland, and well over one-half had more than 10% in native woodland. The continued protection of this native vegetation under the Act imposes small costs on some landholders and high costs on others. Almost one-quarter of the farmers are losing only 5% or less of their potential income, but another quarter are losing at least one-half of their potential income. The farmers consider offsets to be an effective way for the state to promote conservation and compensate for some of their losses, and their wide range of suggestions for different kinds of offset is documented. The landholders who wish to clear more woodland are the poorer farmers who have the highest proportions of native woodland and grassland on their properties. The results are discussed in the context of current changes in the legislation.
The importance of seasonal variability and tactical responses to risk on estimating the economic benefits of integrated weed management
Seasonal variability is an important source of risk faced by farmers and, regardless of an individual's attitude to risk, there are options to tactically adjust production strategies as the outcomes of risk become known. The objective of this article is to measure the economic benefits of alternative approaches to managing weeds, one of the most serious production problems in Australian cropping systems. A bioeconomic model that combines weed biology, crop growth and economics is developed to value the effects of seasonal variability and the role of tactical responses and sequential decision making in determining an optimal integrated weed management strategy. This shows that there are substantial differences in the measured long-term benefits from deterministic and stochastic simulations. It is concluded that, for research evaluation of technologies that involve complex biological and dynamic systems, ignoring the impacts of seasonal variability, responses to risk and sequential decision making can lead to an incorrect estimate of the economic benefits of a technology. In this case study of optimal weed management strategies in Australia, the size of the error is high.
Editorial - Decision rules, government rules, and the costs of vegetation protection in New South Wales
Governments regularly spend public funds to purchase environmental amenities. They might purchase land to add to the public estate, pay to fence stock out of endangered native forest, or offer stewardship payments as incentives to conservation. Governments also regularly introduce policies to achieve environmental goals, even though these policies impose costs on firms, households or farms. The basic decision rule, to maximise environmental benefits from a given budget, in all these cases is received wisdom within the economics profession. In the case of purchase of land to add to the public estate:Maximise environmental benefits by purchasing land in descending order of the ratio of benefit to cost until the budget is exhausted. More generally, funds should be allocated to individual activities within a programme in order of the decreasing ratio of benefits to costs until the budget is exhausted. This rule can be applied when benefits can be measured in any monetary or non-monetary quantitative index. In the case of conservation of vegetation, it can be applied relatively simply in the field when vegetation types and land values can be mapped jointly through GIS techniques. This simple decision rule is not always followed by government agencies that manage environmental programmes. Consider the protection of native vegetation, which is defined to include native forest, native woodland and native grassland. To meet international obligations to protect this kind of environment, most countries must involve private landholders in conservation because there are insufficient government reserves to meet the international commitments. Indeed, most countries have already introduced many policies to encourage private landholders to protect native vegetation on their forests and farms.
Using aerial mapping to analyse factors affecting the spread of Scotch broom
Scotch broom is an invasive weed in many subalpine ecosystems. It often has substantial negative effects on ecosystem structure and functions. Decisions on optimal management strategies require predictions of the rates and patterns of Scotch broom spread. This paper explores the environmental and management factors that influence the rate of spread of Scotch broom in Barrington Tops National Park. The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the then neighbouring NSW State Forests prepared aerial maps showing Scotch broom infestation in the Park for 1989,1993 and 1999. These maps were used to generate data for the current analysis. Map reference points 1km apart along the southern boundary of the 1989 area of infestation were examined and 1993 and 1999 differences from the reference points were measured. Also measured were environmental factors including natural vegetation type, natural vegetation density, soil type, slope, altitude and the presence of private property or crown land. The incidence of natural disaster, feral animal activity and NPWS management activities were also included in the analysis.