Category Archives: Case Study

Biodiversity monitor for DAIRY farming

Summary

The Green Deal Dutch Soy is a contract between national government, regional governments, a soy processer / feed producer, and farmers. They aim at establishing a viable production chain for soy in the Netherlands, by identifying the most suitable varieties and ensuring a solid soy production volume that allows a viable chain, with fair prices for soy farmers. Being a legume crop, soy can sequester nitrogen in the soil, with that reducing the need for fertilizers in the follow up crop and benefiting soil quality in the long run. Furthermore, increasing the soy area in the Netherlands can have a positive impact on biodiversity. The Green Deal Dutch Soy is a set of non-binding commitments.

Objectives

The Green Deal Dutch Soy aims to realise 10 000 ha/year harvested area and an average yield of at least 3500 kg/ha.

Public Goods

Climate regulation - carbon storage — **Climate regulation – carbon storage**

Rewilding of detention basin in Massa Lombarda

Problem description

Green deals have been established in the Netherlands to stimulate entrepreneurship and to enable entrepreneurs and societal partners to test and implement green solutions in a bottom-up, solid, quick, but robust way. They aim to overcome bureaucratic and related time consumption barriers that normally hamper innovation. The specific Green Deal Dutch Soy specifically responds to the unsustainable soy production standards in the current Dutch trade partners for this crop.

Download this Case Study

Bauska Nature Park tidy up of territory

Leave a Reply

Summary

Investment in public property of Bauska local municipality (Lithuania) adjacent to private person’s property is promoted by regulations on real estate tax rebate. The landowners can apply for a reduction of the real estate tax in order to tidy up the bordering territories, to improve sidewalks, construction or reconstruction of streets, children’s and sports grounds, water parks, sewerage systems etc. The Bauska County’s natural environment is a resource of active recreation and tourism. The Bauska County has several particularly protected areas, and the nature park „Bauska” (NATURA 2000 – EU protected natural area of 892.9 ha) is the most important of them, and there are also several natural monuments and natural restricted areas.

Objectives

To bring new ideas and insights to the development of the area, improve the landscape and the environment valuable experience;
To promote the formation of the landscape of the local authority and the maintenance of the territory;
To stimulate the active participation of landowners in the maintenance of clean and tidy local authority territory and creation of good environment.

Public Goods

Problem description

Unfortunately, there are several landscape degradation objects in Bauska – abandoned buildings, ruins, overhead transmission lines. It is desirable to remove objects degrading the environment and to plant rows of trees to cover building and environmentally degradable objects. Potentially landscaped areas where serious work is still needed to improve the landscape and the environment. In this area it is necessary to cut bushes, where it is necessary to level the terrain by removing scraps, preserving and creating ponds. In many places, the landscape is defaced by old ruins of agricultural or industrial structures, as is the case on the right bank of the Ceplis and Jumpravmuiza manor, as well as by shrubs.

Download this Case Study

Rewilding of detention basin in Massa Lombarda

Leave a Reply

Summary

The CBRO purchased an area with the objective of managing both biodiversity and the resilience to natural hazards. The CBRO used EU-funding to finance the ecologically restoration of the area. Despite the financial supports envisioned a 20 years period, the CBRO decided not to change the land use destination of the area after the end of the period. This ensures a longstanding provision of environmental public goods, beyond the fixed policy terms. The case study is a successful example of a land tenure approach to environmental management, carried out by a collective/public association with funding from the EU. It is a small basin representative of the humid environments once present in the Ravenna plain, in an area with farms and factories between canals, after more than a couple of centuries of incessant reclamation. It is located in an interfluvial zone formed by more or less recent alluvial deposits, the site is characterised..

Objectives

Biodiversity and resilience to natural hazards

Public Goods

Problem description

To conjugate the need of managing natural hazard (flood) around Conselice, and to re-establish many local species that have been driven away from their habitat, the consortium has decided to purchase private land for public objectives and used EU funds to ecologically restore the area.

Download this Case Study

BRIDE – Biodiversity Regeneration in a Dairying Environment

Leave a Reply

Summary

BRIDE is a results-based landscape biodiversity project in a low-land intensive farming region, where farmers agree to improve the quality of the habitats on their farms. The BRIDE project involves 44 farmers working together to improve landscape biodiversity in the Bride River Valley Region. It is an EIP-Agri project which has been funded for the period 2018 to 2023. The project has designed, and is implementing, a results-based approach to conserve, enhance and restore habitats in low-land intensive farming. A results-based payment scheme is applied whereby farmers are assessed and scored, with higher quality habitats gaining higher payments. The farmers are geographically clustered enabling a landscape approach, a critical element in effective landscape biodiversity and in the creation of a well functioning bio-district. BRIDE is locally-led and farmer driven. It also incorporates knowledge transfer opportunities for farmers to learn how to manage habitats and improve farm-level biodiversity.

Objectives

Explore an innovative implementation of a results-based approach for wildlife on intensively managed farmland.
Develop, implement and assess innovative options to restore, preserve and enhance farmland habitats.
Improve communication and dissemination about the contribution of Irish farmland to the conservation of biodiversity, especially in intensively managed dairy grasslands.
Facilitate the creation of a market-based demand by the agri-food industry for supply of ecosystem services from farmers.

Public Goods

BRIDE – Biodiversity Regeneration in a Dairying Environment

Problem description

The BRIDE Project directly addresses three key drivers of habitat reduction on intensively managed farmland by firstly, incentivising farmer action to maintain and enhance biodiversity; secondly, increasing awareness of biodiversity on such farms; and, thirdly, stimulating a market-based signal that values such biodiversity. The conditions that led to the project were a recognition that biodiversity, particularly on intensive farms, was reducing, coupled with a more general concern with the perceived ineffectiveness of the agri environmental schemes which were designed on a national basis, input-based and usually regulatory (and sometimes punitive) in nature. A team of local farmers initiated the project, having recognised that a results-based scheme which gave autonomy and flexibility to the farmer would be more effective. They also recognised the need for agri-environmental schemes to engage with the more intensive farmers, and at a more local level, if there was to be a transition to sustainable agriculture in Ireland.

Download this Case Study

Esprit Parc National – Food and services in the national park of Guadeloupe

Leave a Reply

Summary

The contract is characterized by two regulations frameworks: a generic one and one depending on the categories of products or services branded. The generic regulation states the common commitments and eligibility criterions required for every provider of
products or services called User (of the brand). Among the general requirements are those relative to the protection and the valorization of the landscape quality and biodiversity, the valorization of natural resources and local craftsmanship in a processes of sustainable development. The User has to comply with these regulations during the contract. The length of the contract is not fixed in these regulations and can be renewed. The contracts are between the User and the national park where her activities are located. The Users pay an annual fee to use the collective brand. The amount of the annual fee is fixed by decision of the French Biodiversity Agency. The Agency can also decide to change unilaterally the regulations both generic and specific, in which cases the User can have up to 3 months to comply with the new regulation.

Objectives

A tool for the economic development of park lands, while preserving nature
A bearer of the values of national parks (commitment, authenticity, respect, sharing, vitality)
Raise consumers’ awareness

Public Goods

**Recreational access / Improvements to physical and mental health**

Esprit Parc National – Food and services in the national park of Guadeloupe

Problem description

“Esprit Parc National” is a collective brand registered by the national parks of France and it is implemented in each of the 10 French national parks. The brand is exclusively granted to products or services from economic activities that preserve the biodiversity and the heritages. Through this brand, the national parks contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage and the valorisation of activities compatible with nature protection. The national park of Guadeloupe is a part of it, and has implemented this brand in its territory, first in order to support the development of ecotouristic activities. However this brand also concerns agroforestry productions, in particular undergrowth crops such as vanilla, coffee or cocoa.

Download this Case Study

Carbon Market – a marketplace for the restoration of ditched peatlands

Leave a Reply

Summary

The Carbon Market, launched in May 2018, is a value chain contract solution that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to increase carbon storage by restoring ditched peatlands to their natural state. The contract solution has also collective elements, since many of the peatlands have several owners. The owners of the peatland (usually individual forestland owners but can be also foundation, municipality or parish) assign a drained peatland to be restored and to leave it untouched. Until now, some 700 hectares are agreed to be restored from 10 landowners (private individuals and foundations), and negotiations with five landowners are ongoing. The restoration is financed by selling shares on the Carbon Market. In practice this means that participating people and companies give money to the Carbon Market. Investors/donors receive the carbon stock certificate, stating the amount of restored peatland and the carbon stock. The price for the donors is fixed, 800 euros per hectare. By the end on 2019, there were some 2,900 investments from 2,500 people, total sum being 820,000 euros. Companies have also been interested to collaborate with Carbon Market, and a kind of compensation product is being developed for them. Currently, there is more money than suitable peatlands to be restored.

Objectives

Increasing carbon storage
Safeguarding biodiversity
Safeguarding water quality

Public Goods

Carbon Market – a marketplace for the restoration of ditched peatlands

Problem description

Peatlands cover almost one third of Finland’s land area and they are one of the largest carbon stock in Finland. From 1960s to 1990s, more than half of the (original) mires were drained for forestry purposes (Southern Finland 80%, Northern Finland 40%). However, in many cases ditching efforts did not result in growth increase of forests, since the peatland areas were not fertile enough for timber production purposes. Draining of pristine mires was given up in 2001, and recent forestry related emphasis has been on ditch clearing and
associated supplementary draining. Draining alters the hydrology of mires which may destroy mire vegetation and lead to biodiversity loss, cessation of peat accumulation and increased carbon emissions. Restoration of drained peatlands, e.g. by filling in and damming the ditches and removing part of the growing trees, aims to gradually restore natural mire hydrology and original mire vegetation, and turn the peatland back to carbon sink. So far, restoration projects for peatlands have concentrated almost entirely on protected areas on state land. Carbon Market is one of the first instruments that funds
restoration of private peatlands.
The Carbon Market is founded by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation in 2018. The initial development efforts of the Carbon Market were funded by the Kone Foundation. The aim has been to develop a new, inspiring way to mitigate climate change and to raise
funds for nature conservation. The main idea is an online donation service designed to reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon storage by restoring ditched peatlands that are unsuitable for forestry use.
Through buying shares from Carbon Market, one can directly invest in the sequestration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into peatlands. The investor (i.e. donor) will receive the carbon stock certificate, stating the amount of restored peatland and the carbon stock. The landowner, in turn, may offer drained peatland to the Carbon Market for restoration. The suitability of the peatland is assessed by experts of Carbon Market. The landowner allows the experts of the Carbon Market to make the restoration plan for the ditched peatland, and the Centers for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centers) gives permission for the restoration work. Assigning the peatland for restoration doesn’t mean a change in the ownership of the peatland but landowner has to transform it into a private protected area, which ensures the contract is binding and permanent. It is possible to get public support for protection if it is considered to be very valuable.

Download this Case Study

CONSOLE

CONtract Solutions for Effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods by EU agriculture and forestry

Category Archives: Case Study

Biodiversity monitor for DAIRY farming

Summary

Objectives

Public Goods

Problem description

Bauska Nature Park tidy up of territory

Summary

Objectives

Public Goods

Problem description

Rewilding of detention basin in Massa Lombarda

Summary

Objectives

Public Goods

Problem description

BRIDE – Biodiversity Regeneration in a Dairying Environment

Summary

Objectives

Public Goods

Problem description

Esprit Parc National – Food and services in the national park of Guadeloupe

Summary

Objectives

Public Goods

Problem description

Carbon Market – a marketplace for the restoration of ditched peatlands

Summary

Objectives

Public Goods

Problem description