Tom M. van Rensburg

Estimating Linkages between Redfish and Cold Water Coral on the Norwegian Coast

Abstract The importance of essential fish habitat in supporting commercial fisheries has received increasing attention in recent years. Bottom trawling is known to cause particularly destructive damage to habitat that is effectively non-renewable, such as cold water corals. This paper applies the production function approach to estimate the link between cold water corals and redfish in Norway. Both the carrying capacity and growth rate of redfish are found to be functions of cold water coral habitat and thus cold water corals can be considered an essential fish habitat. The paper also estimates a facultative relationship between cold water coral and redfish stocks. The essential habitat model shows the best fit to the data. Comparative statics of an essential habitat indicate an approximate annual loss in harvest of between 11 and 29% within the bounds of coral decline estimated by scientists. In terms of policy, our results indicate that essential fish habitat protection should be considered when managing commercially important species. JEL Classification Code: Q22

Making the Commons Work: Conservation and Cooperation in Ireland

Commonage represents land held under common property that incorporates a system of local cooperative arrangements and rules to conserve and manage the Irish uplands. We analyze the institutional and economic factors that influence the behavior of commonage farmers under a common property regime using a recursive bivariate probit model. Results show that (1) cooperation has a positive and important impact on commonage conservation; (2) agricultural policies by way of livestock premia increase the level of degradation; while (3) farm financial support through agri-environment measures positively affects commonage conservation and encourages cooperation between farmers. (JEL Q24, Q15)

Examining labelling effects within discrete choice experiments: An application to recreational site choice

Data from a discrete choice experiment aimed at eliciting the demand for recreational walking trails on farmland in Ireland is used to explore whether some respondents reach their choices solely on the basis of the alternatives label. To investigate this, this paper exploits a discrete mixtures approach that also encompasses continuous distributions to reflect the heterogeneity in preferences for the attributes and alternatives. We find evidence that a proportion of respondents choose on the basis of the label only and that differences emerge between rural and urban respondents. We provide a number of alternative explanations for why this may occur. Results highlight a large impact on welfare measures when we accommodate the fact that a proportion of respondents choose on the basis of the label only.

Supporting the Conservation of Farm Landscapes via the Tourism Sector

Agri-environmental subsidy payments have, in part, been designed to compensate farmers for employing environmentally friendly farming techniques that provide multiple ecosystem services to the public. These public good benefits have also been well recognised in the context of a growing rural tourism sector. However, the high costs associated with the subsidy schemes, in conjunction with the ongoing economic recession, mean that it is necessary to explore alternative sources of funding in order to sustain the farming community. Through a case study in western Ireland, we explore the potential of a “beneficiary pays” approach to generate revenues for funding the maintenance of farm landscapes, which are a fundamental attractor of tourists to the region. Our results suggest that both tourists visiting the region and accommodation providers in the locality are willing to contribute towards the costs of preserving farm landscapes and that such a scheme may generate substantial contributions, albeit not sufficient to replace existing government funding.

Public acceptance of large-scale wind energy generation for export from Ireland to the UK: evidence from Ireland

Although international trade in energy may offer a flexible and cost effective means by which European countries could meet their renewable energy targets, developers in the exporting nation can face local opposition for reasons which are not always clear. Using focus groups and a public survey, we contrast perspectives between local stakeholders and wind farm operators and investigate the community impacts associated with large-scale wind energy for domestic use and export from Ireland to the UK. Although the export of renewable energy from Ireland to the UK is currently on hold, our findings suggest that significant investment is required by the state and wind farm operators in better information provision, trust building, effective instruments to internalise wind farm externalities and co-management arrangements before Ireland can fully capture the benefits of wind exports to the UK.