Prof. Dr. Roland Olschewski

Finanzielle Anreize für proaktive Massnahmen vielversprechend, Skepsis bei Gastbaumarten

Vor gut einem Jahr nahmen die Mitglieder von WaldAargau an einer Umfrage der WSL, zum Thema «Anpassung der Waldbewirtschaftung an den Klimawandel», teil. Gerne präsentieren wir hier die wichtigsten Ergebnisse daraus.

The impacts of climate change threaten forest ecosystems and the services they provide. Policies and measures to make forests more resilient to climate-change-induced disturbances are needed, but the success of such efforts depends on their acceptance among forest owners and managers. Based on a discrete choice experiment survey among Swiss forest owners and managers in the canton of Bern, we analysed whether respondents prefer (i) proactive over reactive interventions, (ii) advanced/natural regeneration over plantings, (iii) native over non-native tree species, and (iv) the role governmental payment schemes play in these decisions. About one-third of the respondents belong to the class of forest managers and owners that are open to a transition strategy including proactive interventions and non-native tree species. Two-thirds of the forest owners and managers prefer a reactive restoration approach after disturbances and management that relies on native tree species. The amount of financial support plays a decisive role in the willingness of most respondents to accept adaptation measures. These results confirm the feasibility of diversifying the policy support toolbox to enable more proactive climate-adaptive forest management.

1. Agricultural ecosystems managed by farmers provide and receive multiple ecosystem services that are essential to sustain human well-being. Understanding how agricultural production systems generate agroecosystem services is as important as gaining deeper insights into how farmers perceive and value them to ensure the adoption and implementation of sustainable agricultural practices.
We conducted a comprehensive review and in-depth analysis of existing valuation studies on agroecosystem services to identify potential future research directions.
2. We found two broad research strands of articles: one focusing on 'General assessment of agroecosystem services' and the other on 'Implications for policy making'.
3. The first strand focuses more on individual preferences and monetary values, which might limit a comprehensive assessment. The second strand emphasizes participatory and deliberative techniques to reflect the plurality of values and to provide empirical evidence for policymaking.
4. We recommend to move beyond monetary valuation techniques, and to develop methods that bridge the two strands as a promising avenue for future inter- and transdisciplinary research.

Transformations-defined as deep, radical, non-linear, multi-dimensional, systemic processes of change–are required to avert serious threats to humanity and the environment. In this study, we have analysed past transformations in Switzerland in four environmental domains, with the aim to draw conclusions for current challenges, such as the net-zero transformation. Firstly, we have conceptualised and defined transformations. Secondly, we have applied and further developed two theoretical frameworks to (i) identify actual transformations in the four domains, and (ii) analyse crucial characteristics of these profound changes. Furthermore, we have examined relevant enabling and hindering factors for transformations. Our study is based on literature review and expert interviews, as well as triangulation workshops to align the collected information. We conclude that providing general blueprints for transformations is not possible due to the complexity and context-specific nature of these processes. However, for the net-zero transformation to be successful, we found that unprecedent efforts are needed with respect to pace, sectors involved, levels of initiative, mindset change in the broader population, and involvement of technology and research. Specifically, we recommend fast action to (i) implement a steering committee combined with citizens' assemblies and cross-sectoral discussion platforms, (ii) encourage different actors to take initiatives at multiple levels, and (iii) enable a broad mindset change across different societal groups.

Recent global and regional assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) show that Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) are under an alarming threat due to the continuing loss of biodiversity. These assessments call for increasing conservation efforts and a more sustainable use of biodiversity to enhance the chances of halting biodiversity loss and reversing current trends. One of the strategies to achieve change is to mainstream biodiversity into sectoral policies. Mainstreaming, a concept that can be traced back to the Brundtland report, promotes the integration of the environment into political, societal, and economic planning and decision-making. Based on the review of key studies undertaken during the regional assessment for Europe and Central Asia, we develop a stepwise approach to analyze the current status of mainstreaming of biodiversity and NCP. The approach can be used both for policy design purposes and diagnostic evaluations. It demonstrates that mainstreaming has the potential to improve the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as well as the sustained provision of NCP. However, based on the status of implementation across Europe and Central Asia, we conclude that mainstreaming needs to be pursued and implemented in a stronger and more systematic way. The results of our assessment provide important input to national strategies and policies but also to the ongoing process of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity while developing the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Forested land can play a critical role as a possible area for biodiversity offsetting projects. This would reduce the pressure on agricultural land caused by spreading settlement area and related offsetting requirements. This raises the following question: to what extent have offset regulation and clearance compensation rules become more flexible to allow for compensation projects in the forest due to increased land-use conflicts? To address this question, we draw on the institutional change literature, which proposes that different modes of institutional change towards a flexibilization of offset regulation can be expected in different institutional contexts. Empirically, we focus on the sub-national contexts of two European countries: Bavaria in Germany and the Berne in Switzerland. Although in both cases the forest comprises one-third of their land cover, the cases exhibit quite different forest policies and biodiversity offset regulations. Making the forest area available for habitat compensation projects generally depends on the need (e.g. due to implementation deficits) and the political will to loosen the mitigation hierarchy in both realms. The analysis demonstrates that the preconditions of such institutional change (veto-power of opponents and discretion in implementation) favoured more radical reforms in German biodiversity offset regulation but allowed only tentative adaptions in Swiss forest clearance regulation.

Ein europäischer Ländervergleich zeigt, dass statt der traditionellen Schadensbewältigung neue, proaktive Ansätze für einen resilienten und resistenten Wald nötig sind. Die Förderprogramme zur Bewältigung von Extremereignissen in den beiden Schweizer Kantonen Bern und Aargau entwickeln sich ebenfalls in diese Richtung. Die Akzeptanz verschiedener Ansätze der Klimawandelanpassung im Wald wurde mit einer Befragung untersucht. Viele Waldbesitzer und -bewirtschafter gehen reaktiv vor und setzen auf einheimische Baumarten. Ein stärker proaktives Vorgehen auf gefährdeten Waldflächen, auch unter Berücksichtigung von Gastbaumarten, ist dennoch für einen erheblichen Teil der Befragten denkbar. Dabei spielt die Höhe der finanziellen Förderung für die meisten die entscheidende Rolle.

Climate change and the associated increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events pose new challenges for forest management. Research shows that instead of traditional disturbance and damage management, new, proactive approaches and comprehensive, long-term risk management are needed to adapt forests to the impacts of climate change. Implementing this is difficult and requires intensive collaboration between forest owners and managers and the state. This paper examines the development of supporting programs in the two Swiss cantons of Bern and Aargau over the past 30 years. It goes on to discuss the main outstanding issues as well as the corresponding options for action by the state based on a survey of forest owners, forest managers and foresters. While many still prefer traditional forest management approaches and indigenous tree species, subsidizing a mix of indigenous and foreign tree species well-adapted to climate change should prove fruitful. In this case, the amount of state subsidies is the decisive factor for most respondents - making them a powerful instrument to support change.

Wald ist wertvoll und braucht Schutz und Pflege. Er erbringt zahlreiche sehr unterschiedliche Leistungen - die Bereitstellung von Holz ist nur eine davon. Allein schon die Erfassung dieser Leistungen ist komplex und einem ständigen Wandel unterworfen. Ein neuer Bewertungsansatz hat zum Ziel, die Beiträge der Natur für den Menschen in möglichst vielen Entscheidungen zu berücksichtigen.

This paper examines how mixes (wind, photovoltaic, power lines) of different renewable energy infrastructure (REI) impact people's preferences for various landscape types. This does not only involve the visual character but also meanings that are assigned to these landscapes, which together influence the perceived landscape quality. The research is based on a representative online panel survey of Swiss residents (n = 1062). A discrete choice model (15 choice tasks) was implemented to estimate people's preferences for different REI scenarios across several landscape types. Hierarchical Bayes analysis allowed us to determine preferences of the different respondents, while choice simulation allowed us to estimate preferences for every potential scenario (n = 224) of the discrete choice experiment. While the results show a heterogeneous picture of people's preferences, they also reveal common general patterns. Near-natural, mid/high-elevation landscapes in the Alps are clearly rejected for REI implementation. Landscapes dominated by settlements or intensive agricultural use and landscapes in mountain tourist areas are preferably selected for REI developments. REI scenarios including overhead power lines perform consistently lower than scenarios without power lines. Overall, high preferences for scenarios with low REI indicate that society still lacks awareness of the need for massive REI implementation to achieve a sustainable energy transition.

Aufgrund des Klimawandels werden Schneedecke und Gletschermasse abnehmen, Niederschläge sich mehr in den Winter verschieben, und es muss mit häufigeren Sommertrockenheiten gerechnet werden. Gleichzeitig wird erwartet, dass die Nachfrage nach Wasser, insbesondere durch die Landwirtschaft, in den Sommermonaten zunehmen wird. In diesem Zusammenhang stellt sich die Frage, wie gross das Potenzial von Wasserspeichern zur Verminderung von Sommerwasserknappheit ist. In einem ersten Teilprojekt wurden für 307 mittelgrosse Einzugsgebiete der Schweiz die heutige und zukünftige Sommerwasserknappheit abgeschätzt und dem nutzbaren Speichervolumen natürlicher Seen und künstlicher Speicher gegenübergestellt. Dabei wurde aus Sicht der Wasserbilanz das lokale Potenzial von bestehenden Speichern zur Verminderung von Wasserknappheit als eher gering eingestuft. Auf regionaler Ebene (d.h., für grössere Einzugsgebiete) wurde jedoch aufgezeigt, dass ein Potenzial zur Verminderung der Wasserknappheit vorhanden ist. [...]

Due to climate change, snow cover and glacier mass will decrease, precipitation will shift more to the winter season, and more frequent summer droughts are to be expected. At the same time, the demand for water, especially for agriculture, is expected to increase in the summer months. In this context, the question arises how high the potential of water reservoirs is to reduce summer water shortages. In a first sub-project, the current and future summer water scarcity was estimated for 307 medium-sized catchments in Switzerland, and compared with the usable storage volume of natural lakes and artificial reservoirs. From a water balance perspective, the local potential of existing reservoirs to reduce water scarcity was found to be rather low. However, at the regional level (i.e. for larger catchments), it was shown that there indeed is a potential capacity to reduce water scarcity. [...]

Forest ecosystems provide multiple services. In mountainous regions, protection against gravitational hazards is of particular importance. By preventing soil erosion and functioning as natural barriers and buffers, forests protect the population and infrastructure against avalanches and rock falls. The higher the forests' capacity to regulate and withstand external disturbances and adverse effects the higher the insurance value they provide. To operationalize the insurance value approach and to integrate it into climate change adaptation and disaster risk management, information about supply and demand of this ecosystem service is required. While assessing the capacity of forests to provide protection services has been a longstanding research focus, knowledge about the population's demand for insurance services provided by forests is still lacking. Our study analyzes the preferences of beneficiaries of such services. We conducted a choice experiment in several Swiss municipalities exposed to avalanches and rock falls, accounting for different spatial and institutional contexts. We found that households are willing to pay a significant amount for forest management that enhances forests' insurance services and reduces natural hazard risks. The results help to inform decision making in natural hazard management, and represent a further step towards operationalizing the insurance value of ecosystems.

Over the last years, there has been an increasing interest in the intersection of collective action and payments for ecosystem services. This has been motivated, among other things, by the understanding that spatially coordinated conservation practices can be ecologically more effective. In this study, we propose understanding collective action in the PES context as shaped by three collective action problems: the public good provision problem (i.e., the decision by landholders of whether to participate in a PES program); the coordinated implementation problem (i.e., the decision of landholders who participate in the PES to implement conservation measures in a coordinated fashion); and the externality internalization problem (i.e., the internalization of externalities that PES participants create on neighboring landholders and/or vice-versa). We then explore the extent to which perceptions about those three problems affect participation in PES. For this purpose, we carry out a choice experiment among farmers in the Swiss cantons of Zurich and Aargau. A majority of farmers have pessimistic expectations about the possibility of collective action regardless of whether that serves the provision of ecosystem services (pubic good provision), the coordinated implementation of AES or the internalization of potential externalities. Those with optimistic expectations about the first two problems are more likely to participate in PES. Finally, we find that expectations with regard to the public good provision and coordinated implementation problems interact, i.e., farmers who are optimistic about the willingness of other farmers to participate in PES are also more willing to coordinate in the implementation, and the other way around.

Sowohl Fachleute im praktischen Naturschutz als auch Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler beklagen den lückenhaften Informationsfluss zwischen Wissenschaft und Naturschutzpraxis. Welche Informationsquellen sind für Fachleute im praktischen Naturschutz wichtig und welche nutzen sie in ihrem Arbeitsalltag? Die Beantwortung dieser Fragen würde einen effektiveren Wissenstransfer von der Wissenschaft in die Praxis fördern. Um solche Informationsquellen zu ermitteln, führten wir 2017 eine quantitative Umfrage unter Schweizer Naturschutzfachleuten durch und schlossen dabei Waldfachleute ein. Erfahrungsbasierte Informationsquellen sind für Fachleute im Naturschutz wichtiger als evidenzbasierte Informationsquellen. Artikel aus internationalen wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften werden von den Fachleuten kaum gelesen. Um die Informationslücke zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis im Naturschutz zu schließen, sollten sich Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler als Expertinnen und Experten engagieren und sich Zeit für den direkten Kontakt mit den Naturschutzfachleuten nehmen. Wichtig sind zudem kurze, auf die Zielgruppe ausgerichtete und zusammenfassende Veröffentlichungen sowie spezialisierte Webseiten.

Professionals working in practical conservation management as well as scientists complain about the information gap between science and practice. Which kinds of information sources are important to professionals and which ones do they use in their everyday work? Answering these questions and knowing more about the information sources used by conservation professionals would promote effective knowledge transfer from science to practice. In 2017, we conducted a survey to identify the information sources used by Swiss professionals in nature conservation, including forest experts. Experience-based information sources are more important for professionals and are more often used in nature conservation than evidence-based sources. Articles from international scientific journals are hardly ever consulted. To reduce the gap between science and practice in nature conservation, it is thus important that scientists engage as experts and take time for direct personal contact and exchange with conservation professionals. Short, audience-targeted and synthesising publications as well as specialised websites are vital.

Forests have a huge potential to produce timber and sequester carbon in a joint process. Thus, afforestation projects have been widely undertaken across countries to achieve poverty alleviation and environment protection goals, specifically in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Our study determines the optimal rotation periods of afforestation projects with three different tree species (Chinese fir, Eucalyptus, and Poplar) in various Chinese regions. Applying a modified Hartman rotation model, our results show that the optimal rotation period increases for all examined species, when considering the joint production of timber and carbon sequestration. However, they also indicate that carbon accounting regimes have a significant impact on the optimum rotation as well as on the revenue calculations. We distinguish between temporary (tCER) and long-term (lCER) Certified Emission Reductions. The present value of lCER revenues is three to four times higher than those generated by tCER for the same plantation in the initial 5 to 10 years. In contrast, when the project period extends to 30 years, the present value of lCER revenues is at least two times lower than the present value of tCERs. Therefore, forest managers have an incentive to apply tCER accounting to finance slow-growing plantations, and lCER for fast-growing ones. We conduct a sensitivity analysis with respect to changes in discount rates and carbon prices. While the optimal decision for Chinese fir is highly sensitive to changes in both variables under tCER accounting, the results concerning Eucalyptus are most sensitive under the lCER accounting regime. In contrast, carbon revenues have a minimal impact on the optimal rotation of Poplar plantations, no matter which regime is applied. Our findings can contribute to the efficient and sustainable management of carbon sequestration projects, while the methodology can also be applied to other regions in the developing world.

Forest owners and managers deal with an increasing demand for forest ecosystem services (ES). In addition, a recent change can be observed from a governmental top-down approach to bottom-up initiatives, including efforts of the local population to have a say in forest management decisions. Matching supply and demand is seen as a basic condition for the sustainable utilization of forest ES. Against this background, we address the following research questions: (i) How can the preferences on the supply and demand side of forest ES be consistently determined? (ii) In how far do these preferences vary due to regional and societal differences? (iii) How can the supply and demand of forest ES be matched by forest management alternatives?
We conducted a survey in Switzerland with foresters and the wider population to compare attitudes and preferences of the supply and demand side of forest ES. The core of the study is a choice experiment (CE) to elicit the population's willingness to pay (WTP) for specific forest management alternatives, and the respective willingness to accept (WTA) on the foresters' side. To address spatial and societal heterogeneity, we compare different geographic forest zones and settlement areas.