Learning from the past and embracing future opportunities: Perceptions of new Environmental Land Management Schemes and private nature markets
通过访谈英国农民和顾问，研究他们对新环境土地管理计划及私人自然市场的看法，发现以往负面经验影响参与，政策不确定性和市场诚信问题阻碍采纳，但新市场也促进了合作。
The combination of Brexit and UK government targets, e.g., to address climate change and biodiversity loss, has accelerated the development of new Agri-environmental Scheme (AES), the Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS). To improve ELMS design and implementation, it is timely to understand farmers' and farm advisers’ views on these schemes, including their design, rollout and fit with pre-existing and new nature markets, e.g., carbon, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). Previous research has assessed AES for their attractiveness to farmers and effectiveness. This study examines new challenges associated with the increasing role of the private sector in funding nature recovery on farms, expected increased levels of participation and an increased requirement for collaboration to deliver landscape-scale nature recovery. To understand how this new policy landscape is perceived by the agricultural sector , 18 interviews were conducted with farmers and advisors (farmer advisors and nature market experts). Findings show that perceptions are shaped by previous involvement with AES (e.g., payment rates, participation costs, inflexibility) which although largely negative, highlight areas for better scheme design. New insights on farmer participation emphasise the roles of policy uncertainty, market integrity concerns, and collaboration, including with non-farmers, e.g., conservation organisations, water companies. Slow policy release was stressed as a key reason for low adoption and underscores the importance of aligning AES incentives with policy objectives. Furthermore, participants raised a need for cross market compatibility, compliance flexibility and fundamental questions about achieving carbon neutrality as a prerequisite for carbon market participation. On the positive side, participants agreed that new schemes/markets are breaking down social barriers through the necessity to work with a wider group of stakeholders and have been a driver for increasing interest in farm clusters.