Rewarding landowners and land managers for conserving biodiversity

土地利用和土地管理是世界各地生物多样性状况的关键决定因素。通常情况下，土地管理者不会因为增加生物多样性的决定而受到经济激励，实际上可能会受到保护行动的经济惩罚，因为这往往意味着土地使用利润的减少。因此，生物多样性政策的一个重要方面是考虑如何将保护的好处“内化”给土地所有者，以便他们因采取这种行动而得到奖励。在经济学中，这种激励计划的设计得到了很大的关注，特别是在农业环境政策的具体背景下，以及更广泛地为生态系统计划支付费用。在这项研究中，我们将批判性地审查有关此类计划设计的证据，这些计划试图奖励土地所有者增加(或防止生物多样性减少)其土地上的生物多样性。我们将重点关注4个问题，这些问题似乎对农田生物多样性保护的具体背景非常重要。这些是(1)如何鼓励土地所有者以空间协调的方式参与，因为我们知道，这种空间协调可以改善生物多样性目标的交付；(2)向土地所有者/土地管理者支付他们管理选择的生物多样性结果的费用，而不是这些管理选择本身；(3)鼓励农民群体共同参与，而不是单独参与；(4)利用养护拍卖提高公共资金的分配效率。这一机制目前正在英国的多个计划中进行试验，作为减少房屋建设和生物多样性保护等发展之间冲突的一种手段，同时这一概念也有许多全球经验。生物多样性抵销抵免计划奖励农民和其他土地管理者创建新的保护区，旨在“抵消”开发对生物多样性具体衡量标准的负面影响。然后，这些信用额度可以出售给开发商，这些开发商被要求抵消新建房屋等行动的负面影响，交易由抵消银行监管，以确保在特定的生物多样性衡量标准中“没有净损失”或“净收益”。该项目的第三个方面是回顾关于决定农民参与农业环境计划和补偿计划的决定的文献，因为在这方面经济激励措施的有效程度显然是至关重要的。最后，我们将为这一领域未来研究的优先事项收集一套建议。

Land use and land management are key determinants of biodiversity status around the world. Often, land managers are not financially incentivized for decisions which enhance biodiversity, and indeed may be financially penalized by conservation actions, since this often means a reduction in profits from land use. An important aspect of biodiversity policy is thus to consider how to "internalize" the benefits of conservation to landowners so that they are rewarded for undertaking such actions. Within economics, much attention has been given to the design of such incentive schemes, notably in the specific context of agri-environmental policy, and Payment for Ecosystem Schemes more generally. In this research, we will critically review evidence on the design of such schemes which attempt to reward landowners for increasing biodiversity (or preventing the decrease in biodiversity) on their land. We will focus on 4 issues which seem to matter greatly for the specific context of biodiversity conservation on farmland. These are (i) how to encourage landowners to participate in a spatially-coordinated way, since we know that such spatial coordination can improve the delivery of biodiversity targets (ii) paying landowners/land managers for the biodiversity outcomes of their management choices, rather than for these management choices themselves (iii) encouraging groups of farmers to participate together rather than individually and (iv) using conservation auctions to improve the efficiency with which public funds are allocated.A second aspect of the project is to consider the internalization of biodiversity benefits with an alternative policy instrument where funding comes from the private sector, rather than the public sector: tradeable biodiversity offset credits. This mechanism is being trialled in a number of schemes in the UK at present as a means of reducing the conflicts between development such as house building and biodiversity conservation, whilst much global experience exists with the concept. Biodiversity offset credit schemes reward farmers and other land managers for creating new conservation areas which are designed to "offset" the negative impacts of development on specific measures of biodiversity. These credits can then be sold to developers who are required to offset the negative impacts of actions such as new house building, and trades are regulated by an offset bank to ensure either "no net loss" or "net gain" in a specific biodiversity measure. The third aspect of the project is to review the literature on what determines farmers' decisions in participate in both agri-environmental schemes and offset schemes, since the extent to which economic incentives are effective in this regard is clearly crucial.Finally, we will draw together a set of recommendations for priorities for future research in this field.