Workshop on Biodiversity and Economics European Environment Agency October 5, 2006

1. Workshop on Biodiversity and Economics European Environment Agency October 5, 2006 Kongens Nytorv 6, DK-1050 Copenhagen K ECONOMICS OF BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION AND PRESERVATION Pablo Campos-Palacín Spanish Council for Scientific Research pcampos@ieg.csic.es

2. Table 1a Galician private actors’ preferences: Demand WTP in conserving and increasing Galician natural protected areas Source: Own elaboration from Prada et al. (2005).

3. Table 1.b Galician private actors’ preferences: Supply WTA in conserving and increasing Galician natural protected areas Source: Own elaboration from Prada et al. (2005).

4. Table 2 Environmental income from a steady state management in Guadarrama silvopastoral system natural protected area (2002) The environmental net value applied to accounting identity in the steady state situation: NVAE = OSA + VR +VC + M – ICG – FCCG Source: Campos and Carrera, forthcoming

5. Table 3 Net capital gains present discounted values of Cork oak planting and natural regeneration (20002, €/ha) Source: Campos et al., in preparation.

6. Table 4 Cork oak woodlands environmental final outputs n.a.: not available Source: Campos et al., in preparation.

7. Figure 1 Jerez and Iteimia trade-off between forage unit price and conditioned livestock total income (2002) C’ B’ B C Source: Campos et al., in revision.

8. Concluding remarks It is our feeling that European governments have been unjustifiably postponing the improvements and creation of new statistics to incorporate relevant economic exchange value quantifications of site-specific environmental services from ecosystems. The Spanish pilot experience taken from the scientific literature presents operational and reliable results that show the vast difference between conventional commercial income and real income (if environmental income is incorporated) that society and the landowner enjoy.

9. Concluding remarks Future CAP reform could introduce suitable incentives to improve biodiversity assets in European Union extensive and intensive agricultures (European Commission, 2005). The agreed action between private landowners and public administration will be better applied if economic quantification is developed on the basis of specific ecosystems. Thus, the European Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) could be modified and extended to incorporate the ecosystem perspective and not only family agricultural income, as is the case today.

10. Concluding remarks Demand values for environmental services must always be a useful tool for public policy action. Nevertheless, in preserving biodiversity the policy option could be taken to ignore social preferences, when the policy makers and society accept that a loss of income is tolerable, against the unknown benefit of mitigating the biodiversity loss rate.

11. Thank you... Thank you…