It's time for sustainable, environmental performance

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Who owns the soils? What seems to be a straightforward legal issue actually opens up a debate about the ecosystem services that can be derived from soils and the distribution of benefits and responsibilities for sustaining functioning and healthy soils. In particular, agricultural land use may be constrained by a lack of properly defined property rights. Using the new institutional economics perspective, we show that multifunctionality of soils and an attribute-based property rights perspective substantiate the intuition that land property implies special obligations towards the common good. The concept of ecosystem services can illustrate the variety of beneficiaries of multifaceted soil ecosystem services. This allows identification of reasons for unsustainable soil management that result from imperfections in the definition of property rights. We suggest implications for improved governance of agricultural soils using two case studies in the EU context: the EU Common Agricultural Policy and the use of planning instruments to steer agricultural soil use in Germany. Thus, we contribute to achieving the societal goals of more sustainable land use by detecting causes of shortcomings in current land regulation and by suggesting governance approaches to support a more sustainable management of agricultural soils.

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The European Union and its Member States have been creating a network of protected areas for habitats and species since 1979. In 2017, this included over 27,500 Natura 2000 sites, a combined area of over 18 percent of the land surface in the EU and around 395,000 km 2 of marine territory. According to Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC 1 (HD), any projects and plans within these sites or in their vicinity require an appropriate assessment to ensure that they will not have a significant impact on the integrity of Natura 2000 site. The project or plan is to be rejected by the national authorities if this cannot be excluded without remaining reasonable scientific doubts. This article explores the procedural steps and the requirements that must be examined, which are now covered by comprehensive European Court of Justice (ECJ) 2 case law. Numerous questions that are relevant in practice, however, have only been considered by national courts to date. These will be introduced in this article based on the decisions of the German Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG) 3 and will be the focus of a critical discussion. Questions on the range covered by the term 1

The European Union (EU) is still lagging behind its objective to halt the loss of biodiversity. Current research shows promising ways to improve the cost‐effectiveness of existing policy mixes for habitat protection through the introduction of market‐based instruments. To harness the potential of these ideas for the pursuit of the EU's biodiversity conservation objective during upcoming changes in the policy landscape and to identify the optimal allocation for each instrument, it is necessary to understand the scope for the introduction of market‐based instruments across all relevant fields of EU policymaking. So far, there are, however, few systematic analyses satisfying this purpose. This article analyzes existing instruments under the Birds and the Habitats Directives and the Common Agricultural Policy, and the de lege and de facto constraints and opportunities that result from these policies for the introduction of additional market‐based instruments. The analysis shows that the distribution of authority between the EU and its member states gives each of them different comparative advantages for the introduction of market‐based instruments in the different policy fields. These provide various opportunities for the improvement of the existing policy mix for habitat protection. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

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Fertile soils form an important basis for survival for humans, but also for animals, plants and ecosystems, on which all terrestrial organisms rely. Soil is not only of central importance to the global provision of food and in the fight against hunger; climate, biological diversity and water bodies are also highly dependent on soil quality. Soil conservation is therefore a decisive factor in the survival of humanity. Pope Francis also emphasized this in his encyclical “Laudato si’”. However, increasing pressure is being exerted on soils, which poses an enormous challenge to the international community and thus also to the church. Against this background, in this article, which is based on a Memorandum of the German Bishops’ Working Group on Ecological Issues, arguments and justifications for soil protection and sustainable soil management are developed from different angles—from a creation-ethical, a legal, and an economic perspective. All three perspectives point in the same direction, namely that in the use of soils public interests that serve the society and the environment should be given priority over private interests. These arguments may serve as an important reference point in political and societal debates about soils, and may support strategies for sustainable soil management.