Benefits of the management of agricultural landscape: an application of the landscape value trade
Eija Pouta
(MTT Agrifood Research Finland, , Finland)
Maija Salmiovirta Katriina Soini Tapani Kivinen Marja Uusitalo
Presented in:
Landscape Perception: With a Focus on Cultural and Agricultural Landscapes
Wednesday July 8 at 1:10 pm - 2:50 pm, Room: B 5 52
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Agricultural landscape provides public goods for people as a recreation
environment, and a frame for every day life. In Finland most of the
agricultural environments are located in the most densely populated
southern part of the country, and therefore their importance is
considerable. Agricultural land plays a particularly important role as
a close-to-home recreation environment, covering 180 million day trips
annually. Active farmers maintain agricultural landscapes, partly under
the control of agricultural policy and particularly of its
environmental measures. However, some landscape elements might be
excluded from these measures, although their provision is in the
interest of local people. As a new instrument for landscape value
provision, a voluntary landscape value trade has been suggested.
In this study we are interested of the benefits of a landscape
management on a very local scale. The study area comprises of the
agricultural land and its surroundings around three villages in
Nurmijärvi in Southern Finland. The survey data were collected with a
mail survey addressed to all households on the area. After three survey
rounds altogether 630 inhabitants and landowners responded,
corresponding 29 % response rate. To measure the benefits of landscape
value trade, i.e. respondents’ willingness to pay, we applied valuation
methods that can measure existence values as well as use values i.e.
choice experiment and contingent valuation. Furthermore, the
feasibility of landscape trade was evaluated from residents and
landowners perspectives.
The local case study revealed the importance of landscape management
for local people, as majority of them were ready to participate in the
landscape value trade program as a buyer of landscape values. The
willingness to pay for a landscape management program affecting the
share of cultivated fields, crop variety, grazing animals, buffer
zones, and the condition of production buildings varied from €86 to
€125. The most valued landscape measures were the renovation of
production buildings, and increasing the amount of grazing animals. The
respondents were uncertain of the success of landscape value trade and
they had doubts of the land owners’ willingness to participate in it.
From the land owners 11% expressed interest to participate in the trade.
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