Vargförespråkare lyfter ibland fram USA som någon slags föredöme för hur vargen kan förvaltas. Ofta används yellowstone som primärt exempel. Det man inte tänker på är att man inte kan överföra dessa data direkt till Sverige, det finns allt för stora såväl naturgeografiska som kulturgeografiska skillnader. När USA nämns i sammanhanget brukar konflikter inte nämnas, det är bara ett lyckat föredöme. En annan sak som förutsättningslösa vargförespråkare brukar blunda för är behovet av socioekonomisk konsekvensanalys. Man vill helt enkelt inte acceptera att det blir ett
ekonomiskt och personligt avbräck i livskvaliteten när man får varg i området. Om samhället vill ha mycket varg så är det väl rimligt att samhället ersätter de ekonomiska förluster som vargens närvaro orsakar. Det tycker i alla fall jag, och som vi kan se även en amerikansk professor i ekonomi. Peter Maille intervjuas angående detta i
The Observer, jag har kursiverat några viktiga stycken i artikeln:
Peter Maille suggests compensating farmers, ranchers for wolves on their property
The question is as intriguing as wolves are controversial in Northeast Oregon.
Would paying ranchers a meaningful sum for each wolf on
their land make them more willing to accept the growing presence of
wolves in this region?
Peter Maille, an assistant professor of economics at
Eastern Oregon University, posed this question Friday during a
presentation in La Grande, “Rethinking the rancher-wolf relationship in
Northeast Oregon.”
Maille believes that the possibility of paying ranchers
for their wolves should at least be examined in light of what the
predator, whose numbers are growing in Northeast Oregon, costs
ranchers.
“Wolves are costly to ranchers in more than lost cattle
and other livestock. There are indirect costs,” the economics professor
said.
The indirect costs are significant. They include lower conception
rates among livestock and slower weight gain because of the stress
animals being harassed by wolves experience. Maille said the preliminary
results of one university study indicate the indirect costs ranchers
encounter because of wolves may be many times greater than the cost of
losing livestock to wolf kills.
Wolves unquestionably hurt ranchers but they should not
be discounted as harmful to the region overall for they offer potential
benefits, Maille said. For example, they could conceivably boost
tourism and may improve riparian habitat. Wolves, according to some
studies, boost riparian areas by keeping deer and elk moving, preventing
them from spending too much time consuming vegetation near streams.
Such benefits theoretically could be boosted in at
least a small way if ranchers became more accepting of wolves through a
program which compensated them for the wolves on their property, Maille
said.
The EOU professor said that finding funding for his proposed program would be very difficult.
His idea may not be as far fetched as it appears at first glance.
“It sounds radical but in West Virginia it produced some interesting results,” Maille said.
The West Virginia program Maille referred to involved
not wolves but ranchers and water quality. Maille conducted a study for
his doctorate at the University of West Virginia which provided ranchers
with a financial incentive to boost the quality of stream water leaving
their property. It was funded by a $220,000 USDA National Research
Initiative grant.
The study involved 14 farming and ranching households
on an 11 square-mile area. The ranching and farming households received
up to $2,000 a month if the stream water coming off their property was
of good quality. The primary pollutants Maille was concerned with were
nitrates from animal waste and commercial fertilizer.
The West Virginia farmers and ranchers responded to
financial incentives in a big way, taking many steps which boosted water
quality. They installed fences along creeks to keep livestock out, took
steps to keep animal waste away from streams and took other measures.
Maille and his adviser at the University of West
Virginia, Alan R. Collins, an agriculture and resource economics
professor, wrote a book about their 30-month study which ended four
years ago, “Performance-based payments for conservation: Experience from
a water quality experiment.”
Maille believes there is a chance he could someday
conduct a similar experiment in Northeast Oregon involving wolves and
ranchers. He said it would be an enormous project which would likely
have to be grant funded.
“We may find it overwhelming but I think it would be a wonderful thing to try,” he said.
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