Dear all,
On Monday we had a thought provoking lecture on wetlands. As Hlynur mentioned one of the policy options the wetland restoration committee came up with was to suggest farmers would be paid for restoring wetlands - as farmers are being paid to reforest their land. One argument is that due to the varied services wetlands provide the benefits are public and tremendous - hence justifying the subsidy. Another argument is that wetlands sequester carbon, and wetland destruction leads to the release of significant amounts of greenhouse gasses. What do you think about this policy suggestion? Is it justifiable? Should we only rely on anthropocentric justifications for such action?
posted by Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir @ Tuesday, September 25, 2007
9 Comments:
Yes I think it is justifiable to pay farmers for restoring wetlands. The fact is that in our society money talks and little happens without money. I'm afraid that if the farmers don' t see any benefits in restoring the wetlands only a little part of them would do it. The restoration and the subsidies would have to be limited though, with some restrictions, because in some cases it may not be possible. Probably geological information would be needed for all areas and maybe also satellite pictures. Then farmers would probably need some advices or assistance from specialists on how it could be done. This would probably be expensive but it should be accounted for in the defensive expenditures of the government. My opinion is that there should be taxes put on companies that cause lot of CO2 emissions, for example the aluminum smelters and also in the fishing industry, and these taxes would then be used for defensive expenditures, like restoring wetlands.
i agree with you Halla: it is justifiable, and money probably a necessary incentive in order to see this happening.
furthermore, considered in the perspective of reducing greenouse emissions, wetland restoration can be an important means for Iceland to adjust to the Kyoto protocol parameters (this is, at least, what the committee itself has suggested). such a policy, in fact, would neither represent a hindrance to economic development, nor impose unpopular limitations onto society (to be clear, in the short term, i don't really see Icelanders stopping abusing their cars, in order to limit CO2 emissions).
finally, although i deem such anthropocentric considerations sufficient to legitimize the proposal and its actualization (after all, we live nearly in times of emergency), it could be pointed out that the benefits of wetland restoration would not end there. as Hlynur mentioned, there appears to be a shortage of viable habitats for many species in Iceland - mostly birds: the restoration of wetlands could positively affect more forms of life than only humans.
so... may the Wetland be with you!
Yes I think also that the farmers should be paid for restoring wetlands, but with caution (good planning) and limitations so history will not repeat itself.
Agreed, I'm all for it. Would be interesting to the opposition though, if there is one. Is there? Anyone? Other than money I mean.
I'm always in favour of using anthropocentric justifications to benefit the environment because, though I may not always be in agreement with that thought, it certainly is one very easy way to get the point across. People
care more if they believe it benefits them directly.
I spoke with a forest farmer in the west of Iceland this summer (her forest is on average 60 cm tall) and it was quite interesting. She is very keen on forests, but wouldn't have dreamed of planting anything but her
own private garden without help from the government - she's also a
full-time teacher and a sheep farmer. But with the aid, she will have planted 70 hectares by the year 2015, I think she said. In that case, the government subsidies are benefitting both her and her farm directly
(providing shelter in an extremely windy place), as well as the land and the environment in general.
It's also interesting that within the community of forest farmers, that belong to an extremely young profession in Iceland, there appears to be a lot of good-willed competition - I imagine they sit at their yearly feast and compare notes: "I planted 15.000 trees this year, how many did you get
in the ground?"
I agree to, I would like to belive that the payments would not be neccesary but I don´t think that´s the case. Me and my family have been planting trees for a long time now, and we actually rent the land where we plant the trees, we´ve managed to plant around one hectare in over 15 years, so you can just imagine the work needed for these measures. And that´s one of the reason I don´t think it´s fair to expect farmes, that have a very busy schedule to both take time to do this, in their freetime, AND to pay for the construction/tree plants on their own.
I generally agree with you all that money is as important incentive to restore wetlands, as it is to encourage people to plant forest etc both in Iceland and abroad.
I am just going to kick question in here. We heard in the lecture about farmers whose last deed on their farm was to drain wetland and then leave for good.
These deserted farms and unused farmlands are all over Iceland, and who is going to put the work into changing this land back? This is land that I assume that no one would object to restoring, but the premise in a financial bonus for restoring land is that the farmer does the actual restoration work on his own farm.
How would this work on a farm/land that no one uses/inhabits? Who would take on this task?
Does anyone know?
Well, I guess one is in the need of specialized companies to take on the task of restoring the wetlands. If their work is well payed (by the government or environmental trusts?), they are likely to form.
This could also be a good job alternative or an opportunity for extra income for poor farmers. But as I am not from Iceland I don't know to what extent farmers live in the old traditional way. They might fear their work destroys their own future.
Well, I’m all for restoring wetlands, not just because the sequester CO2 but also because of the wildlife they support, the water filtration and so on.
The anthropocentric view is quite effective and it can be used to get people on board to restore wetlands but I don’t think that paying the farmers is the only way to restore them – though it may be an effective way.
I think that proposing the possibility of restoring the wetlands for employment opportunities and of aesthetic value could be of help. If the wetlands are restored it often only takes a short time for the wildlife to return and that could be an opportunity for the municipality to implement e.g. something like observation facilities for bird viewers or something else similar. The wetlands could be promoted for wildlife watching and etc. And to maybe answer Anne Krage’s question – this could be the way – let the municipalities do the job and then use the wetlands for something more like tourist attraction and such.
I think we need to get the public more aware of the abilities of wetlands since a hole lot of people I’ve talked too don’t even know that they are of any use and even don’t like the sight of it in the country. But as soon as I tell them that wetlands for example sequester CO2, filter water and support all this wildlife they are surprised.
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