The role of non-commercial intermediate services in the valuations of ecosystem services: Application to cork oak farms in Andalusia, Spain (original) (raw)
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Land Use Policy, 2020
This research develops the novel concept of an economic ecosystem service sustainability index from the perspective of total income theory, and presents its empirical application at the spatial unit scale of the agroforestry farm. This paper compares the results accrued from applying the refined standard System of National Accounts (rSNA) and the authors' Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS). The AAS extends the rSNA to capture economic activities without manufactured production costs and substitutes the production cost valuations for exchange values revealed/stated by consumer willingness to pay for consumption of final products without market prices, the aim being to provide more comprehensive figures for total and environmental incomes of the agroforestry farms. Both accounting frameworks are applied to a case study of sixteen large, non-industrial, privately-owned holm oak dehesas (agroforestry farms) in Andalusia-Spain. This dehesa application provides estimates for the economic ecosystem service, total income factorial allocation, total capital and economic ecosystem service sustainability index for the aggregate and individual economic activities of the dehesa, distributed between accounts for the farmer and government institutional sector economic activities. The AAS explicit measurements of the hidden rSNA ecosystem services and environmental incomes of the dehesa allow us to further our scientific understanding of the current and future contributions of environmental income from nature to the total income of society as well as to provide information to the policy makers so that action can be taken to mitigate the depletion and degradation of environmental assets. This dehesa application reveals that environmental income measured by the AAS accounts for 67 % of total income in 2010. The dehesa AAS and rSNA ecosystem services share 34 % and 26 % of total product consumptions, respectively. Coupled with the AAS economic ecosystem service sustainability index of 0.5 and the rSNA economic ecosystem service sustainability index of 0.2, these figures indicate total product over-consumption in 2010. The dehesa case study shows that the AAS ecosystem services and environmental incomes are 2.5 and 8.4 times higher than those of the rSNA, respectively. Once the theoretic robustness of non-market product consumption simulated transaction value is accepted, as in the AAS methodology, the expected official economic ecosystem accounting framework will mainly depend on its ongoing standardization by the United Nations Statistical Division and implementation by individual governments. Thus, the challenge of standardizing and implementing such a framework is more closely linked to governmental policy measures than to the current scientific weakness of non-market product consumption valuations.
Ecological Indicators, 2020
In this research, our objectives are twofold: firstly to conceptualize and compare the ecosystem services and environmental incomes of individual activities at producer, basic and social prices using the extended accounts (Agroforestry Accounting System) and the refined standard accounts (a slightly refined standard System of National Accounts), and secondly, to apply both methodologies at a scale of 4,095 land-cover tiles predominately occupied by cork oak open woodlands (COW), which cover 248,015 ha in Andalusia, Spain. This analysis considers spatial-explicit characteristics of COW across Andalusia. The 15 COW economic activities valued in 2010 include: timber, cork, firewood, nuts, grazing, conservation forestry, residential services, private amenity, fire services, water supply, mushroom, carbon, free access recreation, landscape conservation services and threatened wild biodiversity preservation services. In this research, the ecosystem service is defined as an economic indicator that provides information on the contribution of nature to product consumption by humans in the period, but with an uncertain meaning of ecological sustainability. We show that environmental income is the maximum economic value in the period of sustainable ecosystem service with both ecological and economic significance only if the future sustainable biophysical silvicultural management scenarios are accounted for. To measure environmental incomes, we model the future sustainable silviculture while considering all the management practices required to maintain cork oak woodlands in perpetuity. We use farm-level data to estimate voluntary opportunity costs incurred by land and livestock owners associated with hunting and livestock activities of the farmer as well as their subsequent scaling up to COW land-cover tiles in order to estimate environmental incomes at social prices for each individual activity. In this study, we measure the ecosystem services and incomes of the COW private amenity and public landscape activities at social prices, that is, their basic prices less own compensated and auto-consumed non-commercial intermediate consumption of services used by the private amenity and public landscape activities. The ecosystem services and environmental incomes of cork oak open woodlands measured by the extended accounts at basic prices in 2010 were 1.1 and 1.2 times higher, respectively, than those estimated at social prices. The ecosystem services and environmental incomes measured at basic prices by the refined standard accounts were 0.3 and 0.2 times, respectively, those estimated by the extended accounts at social prices.
2019
The brief description of the sequence of accounts for the products in the SNA and SEEA-EEA guidelines compared does not allow for a detailed discussion on what might be the future development of the satellite standard system of accounts. The ultimate environmental-economic aim of the application of the Agroforestry Accounting System (AAS) to holm oak open woodlands (HOW) in Andalusia-Spain is to test the hypothesis that the valuations of ecosystem services and changes in individual environmental assets of products consumed in the period and those expected to be consumed in the future require the prior measurement of the total income of the products valued at social price in order to carry out estimates, since the environmental component of the total income of an individual product is a residual value subjected to the priorities of remuneration for labor services and manufactured capital. We show that it is possible to coherently estimate the total income from products of a silvopast...
Forests, 2021
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Bridging the Gap Between National and Ecosystem Accounting Application in Andalusian Forests, Spain
Ecological Economics
National accounting either ignores or fails to give due values to the ecosystem services, products, incomes and environmental assets of a country. To overcome these shortcomings, we apply spatially-explicit extended accounts that incorporate a novel environmental income indicator, which we test in the forests of Andalusia (Spain). Extended accounts incorporate nine farmer activities (timber, cork, firewood, nuts, livestock grazing, conservation forestry, hunting, residential services and private amenity) and seven government activities (fire services, free access recreation, free access mushroom, carbon, landscape conservation, threatened biodiversity and water yield). To make sure the valuation remains consistent with standard accounts, we simulate exchange values for non-market final forest product consumption in order to measure individual ecosystem services and environmental income indicators. Manufactured capital and environmental assets are also integrated. When comparing extended to standard accounts, our results are 3.6 times higher for gross value added. These differences are explained primarily by the omission in the standard accounts of carbon activities and undervaluation of private amenity, free access recreation, landscape and threatened biodiversity ecosystem services. Extended accounts measure a value of Andalusian forest ecosystem services 5.4 times higher than that measured using the valuation criteria of standard accounts.
2015
Agricultural landscapes can provide many valuable ecosystem services, but many are externalities from the perspective of farmers and so tend to be under-produced. This paper examines an effort to make direct payments for ecosystem services (PES) in an agricultural landscape. The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project is piloting the use of PES to induce adoption of silvopastoral practices in the Matiguás-Río Blanco area in Nicaragua. Silvopastoral practices could substantially improve service provision while retaining agricultural production, but they have found only limited acceptance among farmers. The Silvopastoral Project seeks to increase their adoption by paying farmers for the expected increase in biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration services that these practices would provide. The Project developed an ‘environmental services index ’ (ESI) and pays participants for net increases in ESI points. Although the Silvopastoral Project is still u...
2014
The aim of this work was to elucidate the socio-cultural and economic value of a number of ecosystem services delivered by mountain agroecosystems (mostly grazing systems) in Euro-Mediterranean regions. We combined deliberative (focus groups) and survey-based stated-preference methods (choice modelling) to, first, identify the perceptions of farmers and other citizens on the most important ecosystem services and, second, to value these in economic terms according to the willingness to pay of the local (residents of the study area) and general (region where the study area is located) populations. Cultural services (particularly the aesthetic and recreational values of the landscape), supporting services (biodiversity maintenance) and some regulating services (particularly fire risk prevention) were clearly recognized by both farmers and citizens, with different degrees of importance according to their particular interests and objectives. The prevention of forest fires (<50% of total willingness to pay) was valued by the general population as a key ecosystem service delivered by these agroecosystems, followed by the production of specific quality products linked to the territory (<20%), biodiversity (<20%) and cultural landscapes (<10%). The value given by local residents to the last two ecosystem services differed considerably (<10 and 25% for biodiversity and cultural landscape, respectively). The Total Economic Value of mountain agroecosystems was <120 J person 21 year 21 , three times the current level of support of agro-environmental policies. By targeting and quantifying the environmental objectives of the European agri-environmental policy and compensating farmers for the public goods they deliver, the so-called ''green'' subsidies may become true Payments for Ecosystems Services.
One Ecosystem
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