Scope and limits of the market mechanism in environmental management

An assessment of market-based approaches to providing ecosystem services on agricultural lands

“…This seems to be based on the increasing evidence of the successful use of market-based approaches in conservation schemes around the world (Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002;Pagiola et al, 2002), as well as the popular view that markets by nature generally are superior allocation mechanisms. In fact, the issue of superior efficiency properties of market mechanisms for environmental management is not settled satisfactorily, due to a dearth of extensive empirical tests (Gustafsson, 1998). 1 This is certainly true also for the particular case of ecosystem services, and we know very little about the relative technical or cost effectiveness of many of the incentive mechanisms with regard to agriculture (Casey et al, 2006).…”

Prescriptions for adaptive comanagement: the case of flood management in the German Rhine basin

“…The flood events of 1993/1995 eventually exerted the political pressure needed to synchronize the individual risk mitigation measures in the Rhine basin. The political arena of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (IKSR) could be used to upscale the ecological retention and risk concept of the federal states, and in 1998, the Action Plan on Floods (FAP) for the Rhine was adopted, to be completed by 2020 within the Rhine 2020 program (IKSR 1995, 1998, 2001a, de Bruin 2006. The FAP represents the core of a bioregional approach with common action targets, firm timings, a budget, and a strict monitoring regime.…”

“…An intensive discussion is ongoing on the preferences concerning the right mix of governance modes, e.g., state/market/ decentralization, knowing that flood management faces increasing complexity and future uncertainty through climate change and socioeconomic developments (Merz et al 2010, Ingram 2011, Hill 2012. The literature shows that both a centrally administrated bureaucracy (Ostrom 1999, Gleick 2003, Pahl-Wostl 2011, as well as yield-oriented market mechanisms (Gustafson 1998, EEA 2005, UNECE 2009) have limitations to respond to the changing conditions of dynamic and nonlinear social-ecological systems on their own.…”

Joint pollution control at a catchment scale: compliance costs and policy implications

“…Given a set of assumptions market instruments will achieve a more ef®cient allocation of pollution reduction across polluters than will a policy based only on regulations. Excellent reviews about the role of economic instruments for controlling agricultural pollution can be found in Weersink et al (1998) and Zabel et al (1998), while their major limitations are adequately presented by Beder (1996) and Gustafsson (1998).…”