Browsing by Author "Gueydon, Anne"

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Adjustment of Resource Exploitation in European Cooperative Pastoral Systems: Impact of External Changes on the Efficiency of Implemented Institutions and Utilisation Rights
(2004) Gueydon, Anne; Roeder, Norbert; Hoffmann, Helmut
"European biodiversity significantly depends on large scale livestock systems with low input levels. In most countries such forms of grazing are organised in permanent or seasonal cooperations (land-owner/land- user agents) and covers different landscape such as forests, pastures, mires and even arable land. The reason for the emergence of cooperative structures was to limit the access of individuals to the resource in order to prevent over-exploitation. Its aim was also to provide large-scale areas facilitating the grazing of big flocks with low costs. Today, the existence of these structures is threatened due to changes in agricultural land-use practices and inappropriate governmental policies. "At first some basic characteristics and the trends of development of the systems are presented. The present paper investigates five livestock systems with varying degrees of cooperation in different European countries and landscapes. These systems are reindeer husbandry in Northern Fennoscandia, sedentary sheep grazing in Central Spain, cattle grazing in the German and Swiss Alps and sheep grazing in the Polish Tatra Mountains. These systems show very heterogeneous organisational patterns in their way of exploiting the pastoral resources and different degree of resource exploitation. "A comparative analysis of the organisation and structural form of the grazing systems presents the role different groups of actors play in these systems and their inter-relationships. Further, the economic implications of the legal definitions of the forage resources and the institutions dealing with the resource exploitation are presented. This leads to an analysis of the way the resource is managed and exploited. "The investigated systems range from ones with a relatively rigid internal structure and rule system, like in Entlebuch and Upper Bavaria, ones with a high degree of governmental involvement, like in Central Spain and in Northern Fennoscandia, and ones which are relatively unbounded by any formal regulations, Poland. "The last section the analysis shows how the systems react to constantly changing economical, environmental, social, technical or legal settings. Adjustment to these external changes entails a modification of the type of good of the resource under management and consequently of the way of managing the resource. For the efficiency of the system the balance between property rights, internal structures, public regulations and institutions has to be maintained."
Cooperative Grazing Organizations in the Pre-Alpine and Alpine Region of Germany: Typology; Economic Importance for the Local Farmers; Future Development
(2006) Gueydon, Anne; Hoffmann, Helmut
"In Germany the Allmende, the old designation for the collective pastoral organizations, have a long tradition going back several hundreds of years. Until the 19th century the Allmende systems were present all over Germany. After the secularization in the 19th century their number decreased strongly. Nowadays they are mostly restricted to the Alpine region in Southern Bavaria. These joint organizations are based on a consensus between one or several land owners and several land users. The latter ones own the right to use the land for grazing activities. The right users are usually organised in cooperative or association form and they manage collectively the utilisation of the pasture. The jointly organizations are often regulated by traditional rules. The collective alpine pastures play a significant role for the conservation of the region's landscape, biodiversity and the recreational values. They contribute to the maintenance of the regional economy and identity. This paper carries out an analysis of the collective alpine pastures existing in the alpine area of Bavaria. It gives first a detailed description of the structure, stakeholders and institutional assets governing them. Secondly it provides an appraisal of the efficiency and potential problem regarding their utilisation intensity. The appraisal reveals that some components like property rights and rules seem in some cases to defect. For instance rules are lacking in situation where use of the resource is depleted. Moreover the adaptation of some rights such as access and exclusion right seems important to guarantee the continuity of utilisation of the pastures. The characteristics of the community and the level of decision-making perform a relatively good social cohesion among the collective alps. Financial support and involvement of extern institutions reinforce the signification of the collective alps, although it has some reverse effect on the systems. Individual interests in the exploitation of the resource seem to play a significant role as well. All these points deliver a first draft of explanation regarding the current use of the systems."
Institutional Settings in Co-operative Pastoral Systems in Europe: First Results from the LACOPE Research Project
(2003) Gueydon, Anne; Roder, Norbert
"European biodiversity significantly depends on livestock systems. In most countries grazing is/was organised in permanent or seasonal co-operations (land-owner/land-user agents) and covered different landscape such as forests, pastures, mires or even arable land. The reason of such cooperatively resource organisation was to provide management unit to communities of landless farmers making the systems closely linked to specific property rights. Those co-operation forms are characterised by larger surfaces as areas of individual management. The commitment of biodiversity conservation of the EU-member states embraces to a large extent the care of landscape and regional development (e.g. AGENDA 2000, NATURA 2000). Large scale grazing systems maintain ecosystems and permit the creation of open habitats for species which are core targets of the European NATURA 2000 system. "As the traditional systems became unproductive in terms of modern economics, landscapes and habitats formed by continuous grazing diminished. Instead, agricultural intensification and private land management caused a segregation of the landscape, a separation of forest and pastures as well as abandonment of marginal sites. Thus, many of the species depending on open or semi-open landscapes are actually extremely endangered. This goes parallel with a regional segregation of Europe, resulting in intensively used, even overexploited regions on the one hand and marginal ones on the other. The large scale grazing systems have to be adapted to modern societies and economically organised. "The LACOPE project aims to stress in more detail the 'co-operative corridor' in large scale grazing systems. This means the particular advantages of co-operative organisation forms to realise large scale grazing (LACOPE, 2000). The main objective of the proposed research project is the improvement of the ecological and economic effectiveness of co-operative livestock systems which contribute to biodiversity conservation. Since large sector efforts of nature conservation have not stopped biodiversity losses in EuropeÃ?ÂŽs open and semi-open landscapes, management methods have to be improved. "Research teams of seven countries (Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Ireland) co-operate to analyse regions with complex pastured ecosystems and typical forms of CLS. The study is carried out regarding two inter-dependant aspects: ecological (flora and Fauna) and economical (socio-economy, resource economy and institutional economy) (LACOPE, 2000)."