The Role of Ownership in Public Conservation Decisions

1. The Role of Ownership in Public Conservation Decisions Amy Ando University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Michael GetznerUniversity of Klagenfurt

2. Structure of the presentation • Conservation policies - determinants of conservation decisions • Wetlands in Austria • Empirical analysis • Conclusions

3. Conservation decisions • Increasing efforts to conserve/protect biodiversity • e.g. Natura 2000 in Europe, Wetlands Reserve Program in US, US Endangered Species Act • Conservation is costly (opportunity cost of land use) - strategic reserve site selection can do much to reduce cost (Ando et al. (1998), Wu and Boggess (1999)

4. Site selection • Rationality of conservation decisions • ecology • economics • political economy (interest groups, ownership) • Are wetland reserves networks biased toward publicly owned lands? • This could be cost-ineffective.

5. Scientific and political determinants • Conservation policy decisions • are based in part on scientific considerations • but political forces matter as well • Ando (1999), Weitzman and Metrick (1997), Getzner (2002)

6. Objective function of policy makers • What objective function are policy makers maximizing? • Stigler (1972), Peltzman (1976) • Could be: • acreage maximization • ideological aims (environmental policy) • maximization of votes

7. Political economy of conservation • Political pressure from interest groups may influence policy choices • Stigler, Peltzman, Becker (1983) • users (companies, agriculture, recreation) and owners of land • other interest groups such as environmental groups • political (partisan) competition

8. Land owners • With compensation for "takings", political pressure is reduced, but asymmetric information makes it difficult to induce efficient landowner behavior (Innes, Polasky, and Tschirhart (1998)).

9. Hypotheses: Conservation decisions ... • ... Influenced by: • Science: ecological/physical/geographical factors • Acreage maximization (minimization?) • Ownership (private land is less likely to be protected?) • Political pressure • Use value of the land - conflicts

10. Austrian wetlands: data Source: Steiner, 2001

11. Wetlands data base • 2,997 wetlands, total of 26,404 hectares • 15% are internationally significant • 60% are privately owned • 18% have some kind of protection • 43% are in or near natural state • 18% are not threatened • Most common threats are pasture (25%) and drainage (18%)

12. Geographic distribution

13. Type of wetlands

14. Ecological significance

15. Conservation status

16. Acidity Trophic factor

17. Ecological state of wetlands

18. Threats to wetlands

19. Ownership

20. Empirical analysis of conservation decisions • Logit analysis of the likelihood that a wetland is protected by provincial, national or international rules (n=2,997) • Ordered probit analysis of the conservation status of wetlands that are protected, ranked with increasing stringency (5=national park, 4=state park, 3=protected landscape, 2= partially protected landscape, 1=natural monument; n=539)

21. Variables included I

22. Variables included II

23. Variables included III

24. Decisions to protect

25. Conservation status

26. Conclusions I • Ecological considerations matter: • "Important", ecologically useful, and easily threatened wetlands are more likely to be protected, and are protected more stringently

27. Conclusions II • Economic/political factors matter • Protection is more likely if wetland is not in conflict with economic activity • Protection is less stringent if agricultural interest groups are likely to be involved - likely to be political

28. Conclusions III • Ownership matters • Protection is most likely and strict if federally owned • Protection of private land is actually more likely if owned by a single large entity than by many small owners - does concentration of ownership facilitate bargaining over compensation, reduce asymmetric information problem?

29. Good news and bad news • This is not just "acreage maximization" • There is some desirable incorporation of opportunity costs into site-selection decisions • Some of the bias against protecting private land is likely to be cost-ineffective, driven by politics and asymmetric information.