A Pilot Agri-Environment Scheme for the Tarnava Mare and Pogány Havas Regions
About this good practice
The project was testing the application of results-based agri-environment schemes at grassland sites in Southeast Transylvania covering 150 ha.
The High Nature Value (HNV) landscapes are havens to a wide range of habitat and species, which often have differing management requirements.
Funded by: DG Environment and Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU)
Duration: 2015-2019
Budget: 415.000 Euro
Payment varied between €140 – 180 per ha according to the number of species. Addition payments was be available for manual mowing, €100 per hectare, and mowing with light machinery €21 per hectare.
The objectives of the project:
• use HNV areas in Transylvania as pilot sites to test design, development and use of result-based remuneration schemes to conserve and enhance biodiversity
• increase the understanding of factors that contribute to the success or failure of such schemes
• identify opportunities and conditions for increasing the use of such schemes in Romania and in the EU more widely, especially in future CAP Rural Development programmes demonstrate the potential of these schemes to achieve ecological targets, using monitoring of indicators in pilot measure participant and control grasslands
• increase the understanding of the benefits of RBAPS schemes within the rural community
• promote RBAPS schemes within the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (MARD) and Ministry of Environment (MoE), based on results achieved.
Resources needed
Budget: 415.000 Euro
Funded by: DG Environment and Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU)
Project management team including financial and technical expertise (Policy advice and measure design advice, Methodologies and measure design advice, GIS mapping including for stratified random sampling maps)
Evidence of success
ADEPT was invited to make a presentation at a workshop on agri-environment schemes, at the European Commission in Brussels in December2019 (80 participants from 25 countries).
On 30 March 2017 ADEPT presented the results of the innovative payments project in Brussels. Over 120 people attended.
Both the Romanian government and the European Commission gave high priority to wider application of this innovative payment system to will help support small-scale farming communities.
Potential for learning or transfer
To test, design, develop and use the result-based remuneration schemes (RBAPS);
To conserve and enhance biodiversity;
To offer higher payments for HNV hot-spots;
To offer flexibility to the farmer to adjust to annual (year-to-year) weather variations, and differences in geographical aspect, altitude and soil type;
To offer an easier controlled, more defensible and cost effective scheme than management-based measures;
It is important that the RBAPS is prepared in a clear and tangible way to present to policy makers at national level, using existing EU rules for agri-environment measures and templates as far as possible;
RBAPS could usefully be linked with the Natura 2000 management, especially as the
indicator species were clearly linked to Habitats Directive Annex 1 habitats.
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