Promotion of afforestation in West Saxony: benefits for the population and preferences of farmers

作者：Voelker Marc; Lienhoop Nele; Ring Irene; Muehlner Susanne

来源：Allgemeine Forst und Jagdzeitung, 2016, 187(3-4): 50-60.

• Instruments for forest conservation
• Stated preference method
• Ecological afforestation
• Economic valuation
• Ecosystem services, Afforestation

The German federal state of Saxony seeks to strengthen the provision of forest ecosystem services through ecological afforestation. This study investigates how important forest ecosystem services are from the point of view of the general population and experts, and how measures to promote ecological afforestation can be designed more effectively. The study area comprises the planning region West Saxony and parts of the catchment area of the river Mulde (Figure 1). Personal interviews with six representatives of different stakeholder groups were carried out to elicit the views of experts on the relevance of different ecosystem services. A survey among the general public was conducted to assess the demand for afforestation in terms of public preferences. Farmers who are the potential suppliers of additional forests were interviewed to better understand their preferences regarding the design of financial support measures for ecological afforestation. The surveys of the general public and farmers both centered on two choice experiments (see Table 1 and Figure 2 for an overview of the choice experiment conducted with members of the general public).
The empirical results show that both experts and the general population view afforestation and its positive effects on ecosystem services as meaningful and desirable (see Table 2 and Figure 3 for results of the survey among the general public). In particular, the positive effects of afforestation on the retention and filtration of water are valued highly by the majority of citizens and experts. The farmer and expert surveys show that a range of options exist to improve the attractiveness of the financial support measure for the first afforestation of agricultural land. While the amount of financial support does play a significant role and needs to be high enough to compensate the opportunity costs of afforestation, other aspects of contract design, which are equally important, include the length of the contract, the option to return to agriculture on completion of the financial support period and the supply of technical assistance for the cultivation and management of the forest.

• 出版日期2016