Who should carry the cost of ecosystem service provision? A pan-European citizens’ view

TY - ABST

T1 - Who should carry the cost of ecosystem service provision? A pan-European citizens’ view

AU - Prokofieva, Irina

AU - Mavsar, Robert

AU - Bartczak, Anna

AU - Boon, Tove Enggrob

AU - Czajkowski, Mikolaj

AU - Giergiczny, Marek

AU - Jacobsen, Jette Bredahl

AU - Mäntymaa, Erkki

AU - Ovaskainen, Ville

AU - Pettenella, Davide

AU - Thorsen, Bo Jellesmark

AU - Tyrväinen, Liisa

AU - Vedel, Suzanne Elizabeth

AU - Vidale, Enrico

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - The underlying notion of payments for environmental services is that beneficiaries of environmental services (directly or indirectly) financially support their provision by covering at least part of the costs landowners incur to generate them. This so-called “beneficiary-pay principle” is a widely accepted concept in theory, the legitimacy of which nevertheless has not yet been challenged in practice. In ourstudy, we conducted an extensive survey in five European countries – Finland, Denmark, Poland, Italy and Spain – with the aim to explore citizens’ opinions of who should carry the costs of ecosystem services provision. The ecosystem services in question were biodiversity, recreation, carbon sequestration, water quality, and scenic beauty. Our results show that the majority of respondents in all studied countries generally think that the costs of enhanced provision of ecosystem services shall be borne by the public administration, rather than by the direct beneficiaries of these services or by the forest owners. However, there is a clear tendency to accept that users shall pay for improved ecosystem service provision in case of local ecosystem services (such as e.g. water quality) or those that have a strong direct use component (e.g. recreation). Moreover, the respondents in generally accept that forest owners shall be compensated for theenhanced provision of ecosystem services, and only a small percentage of them thinks that forest owners should bear all the additional costs related to such provision.

AB - The underlying notion of payments for environmental services is that beneficiaries of environmental services (directly or indirectly) financially support their provision by covering at least part of the costs landowners incur to generate them. This so-called “beneficiary-pay principle” is a widely accepted concept in theory, the legitimacy of which nevertheless has not yet been challenged in practice. In ourstudy, we conducted an extensive survey in five European countries – Finland, Denmark, Poland, Italy and Spain – with the aim to explore citizens’ opinions of who should carry the costs of ecosystem services provision. The ecosystem services in question were biodiversity, recreation, carbon sequestration, water quality, and scenic beauty. Our results show that the majority of respondents in all studied countries generally think that the costs of enhanced provision of ecosystem services shall be borne by the public administration, rather than by the direct beneficiaries of these services or by the forest owners. However, there is a clear tendency to accept that users shall pay for improved ecosystem service provision in case of local ecosystem services (such as e.g. water quality) or those that have a strong direct use component (e.g. recreation). Moreover, the respondents in generally accept that forest owners shall be compensated for theenhanced provision of ecosystem services, and only a small percentage of them thinks that forest owners should bear all the additional costs related to such provision.

M3 - Conference abstract in journal

SN - 0355-032X

VL - 45

SP - 179

JO - Scandinavian Forest Economics

JF - Scandinavian Forest Economics

T2 - Biennial Meeting of the Scandinavian Society of Forest Economics

Y2 - 21 May 2014 through 24 May 2014

ER -