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Highlights • Gender impacted conservation auctions and environmental performance of PES schemes. • Gender effects in PES schemes related to traditional gender roles. • Women were more averse than men to outcome-based conservation contracts. • Women compared to men requested lower payments for action-based contracts. • Targeting women improved gender equity in terms of access to project decision-making, trainings and cash. Abstract Payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes have been increasingly implemented in developing countries where gender-related inequalities are generally prevalent. A randomized field trial in Kenya revealed the impacts of participants' gender in conservation auctions and in environmental performance of action- and outcome-based PES schemes and provided evidence for associations between the gender effects and traditional gender roles. First, we identified differences between men and women in the utilities of the contract and relative risk aversion as potential drivers of the decrease in bids by women compared to men in the auction for action-based contracts. Second, we observed a gender-specific difference in perceptions of risk in the outcome-based approach when women increased their bids. Third, women achieved lower tree survival than men, despite women providing more effort. In this context, we identified the inequality in reciprocal labor for male and female contract holders as a possible source of the gendered tree survival. This case study showed that targeting women improves gender equity in terms of access to project decision-making, trainings and cash, and can significantly improve the effectiveness of the PES scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of reactive nitrogen compounds into the atmosphere, soil and water belongs to one of the biggest environmental challenges in Germany. Consequences are the loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication and acidification of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, impaired groundwater quality and impacts on human health. Responsible for the emissions of reactive nitrogen compounds are primarily agricultural activities and combustion processes. A number of European environmental targets and objectives in the context of nitrogen are clearly being missed. It is urgently necessary to increase the efforts to reduce nitrogen emissions and to protect biodiversity and human health. Important processes are a further development of European clean air policies and the implementation of the European Nitrate Directive and Water Framework Directive in Germany. A national nitrogen strategy could be a good starting point to increase efforts to solve the nitrogen problem and for a better integration of existing protection policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Implementing multiple soil conservation practices yields higher crop productivity. [•] Multiple soil conservation practices enhance land productivity. [•] Whether positive benefits will cover opportunity costs depends on farm conditions. [•] When productivity gains are low, intrinsic/external incentives could be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A newly developed indicator of the pesticide risk for aquatic biocenosis in surface water bodies is applied within an economic sector model, and is used to evaluate alternative designs for an environmental policy programme. For rural districts (‘Landkreise’) across Germany, different widths of riparian buffer zones adjacent to surface water bodies are evaluated in terms of efficient cost/risk ratios. The indicator is defined as acute risk under worst-case input conditions and is based on combining a sectoral model, a national survey on pesticide use and a toxicological risk assessment model. The nation-wide survey provides data on pesticide use by agricultural crop. On this basis, crop-specific risk indices for aquatic biocenosis are calculated by means of eco-toxic criteria for indicator organisms and aggregated through crop patterns to the rural-district level. GIS is used to calculate the influences of natural site factors (e.g. soil types, land use distance to water bodies, etc.) on pesticide input in surface water and to calculate the regional risk potentials at regional level. An economic cost–impact analysis is conducted based on the new indicator. Opportunity costs of converting agricultural land to riparian buffer strips are estimated using the agricultural sector model RAUMIS, for buffer strip widths of 3, 30 and 50m, as per the European the environmental programme EC 99/1257/EEC. These costs are then compared with estimated risk reduction potentials at the regional level of administrative districts. Results show that cost–impact ratios are most efficient for 3m buffer strips and in those regions with the lowest costs from changing agricultural land use (e.g. through reduced livestock production). A major future research need in this area is a higher spatial resolution at the grid-level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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