Status quo der Umsetzung von Naturschutz im Wald gegen Entgelt in Deutschland. Übersicht über die Instrumente der staatlichen Nachfrager

Nature conservation contracts or payments for nature conservation measures are de facto sporadically implemented in forests. Focusing this background the joint research project “Nature conservation contracts in forests (WaVerNa project)” aims to analyze the actual implementation status as well as opportunities and constraints of nature conservation contracts in the field of forest ecology, economics, and legislation. In the field of economics the joint research project deals with aspects of demand and supply. In the process of analyzing the demand side, public and private institutions for an efficient implementation of nature conservations contracts or payments for nature conservation are focused. In the present working paper results from the survey of the status quo for the implementation of those payments on the public demand are represented. The survey is based on literature research, analysis of legal texts, interviewing experts and a written consultation of the highest federal state authorities for forestry and nature conservation. Due to stagnating development of payments for nature conservation in forests, aspects of institutional economics as well as of legislation were taken in to account for the survey. Therefore the survey is determined by the following questions: 1. What are the financing systems for instruments of public demand? 2. What kind of objectives and purposes are pursued with the applied instruments? 3. Which measurements are demanded with the applied instruments? 4. What restrictions and exclusions are determined by the applied instruments? 5. What are the earmarking periods for measurements? 6. What are the types and modalities of donations? 7. How and where are competences for the public demand allocated? 8. Are elements of cooperation intended by the applied instruments? As the results of the survey show, the implementation of payments for nature conservation in forests is characterized by four variations of financing: Three of the four variations are based on a co-funding mechanism. Within these three co-funding mechanisms the funding structure varies to the extent as EU- and/or federal-funding is involved. Due to higher administrative expenses as well as a lack of continuity, most of the analyzed instruments are not based on EU-co-funding and some of the instruments are even decoupled from federal co-funding. As demonstrated by the results of the analysis, the pursued objectives of the administrative regulations are determined by the conservation of biodiversity for its own sake. Being focused on the conservations of biodiversity for its own sake, in general pertinent administrative regulations are not aiming to enforce the interests of forestry operations. The “Hessian Model” is the only instrument that takes into account all conflicting and contradicting interests. Albeit the institutional arrangements are varying among the instruments, those variations are not influencing practical applications of nature conservation in a severe way. The main differences in practical application are related to the mode of payment. Measurements that are sponsored by investments can be mainly defined as active and target-oriented. Those measurements that are payed for within fixed rates can mainly be characterized as being of passive nature and status-oriented as well as target-oriented. As another result the survey shows, that most of the conventional nature conservation measurements in forestry are bounded to areas of special interest for nature conservation. These are in general areas of the Natura 2000-network. Being contextualized to the conflict of the Natura 2000-regime is one major barrier for implementing conservation contracts in forests. There are only very few regulations that are vaguely promoting cooperation and therefore intending to overcome the conflict.