Should livestock farmers be given incentives for ‘good’ ecological practices?

I recently attended a conference in Spain coordinated by the Euromontana network and the ShepforBio (Shepherds for Biodiversity in Mountain Marginal Areas) project that aims to restore grassland habitats by improving pastoral management.

The ‘Shepherds for Sustainability: Ecosystem Services and Pastoral Practices’ workshop bought together several interlinked Spanish projects, including the Entretantos foundation, which is working on creating networks on themes related to extensive pastoralism, the commons and agroecology; the Spanish Platform for Extensive Livestock Systems and Pastoralism; Naturaleza Pastoreada – a “grazing for nature” project that promotes knowledge and innovation of grazing in Spain; and the Global Nature Foundation.

This workshop sought to discuss ongoing examples of how Payments for Ecosystem Services (also known as PES) can be applied to pastoral systems. Zooming out of the European context, one of the main points of reflection for me is what “grazing in the Anthropocene” may mean.

For example, PES linked to grazing are being used for different production systems, from extensive to intensive. These production systems include hybrid ways in which meat, hide/wool, milk and ‘ecosystem services’ are produced, in different contexts. In my view this is a key point in maintaining a critical understanding of the logic behind PES for pastoralism, and whether people who live off the land should be given incentives for ‘good’ ecological practices.

The questions (that must go hand in hand) become: What type of production system do we want to ‘incentivize’ and in what ecological context? And what production system do we want to ‘disincentivize’ and in what ecological context?

In other words – where do we draw the line between a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practice?

Understanding context and the structural reasons behind ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices

In the REPAiR project, we ask how and whether equitable, contextual and community-led nature-based solutions (NbS) can be designed in Southern Africa’s rangelands.

NbS is an umbrella term used to describe solutions that replicate ‘natural’ systems. These forms of ‘ecological engineering’ contrast with the idea of using ‘grey infrastructure’ to manage ecosystems. For example, using mangrove plantations to manage coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion and erosion would be considered a NbS – as opposed to using trenches, catch basins or concrete flood protections.

It is believed that one way to encourage people to use NbS is through Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), a financial tool that sometimes accompanies NbS. The logic is that PES incentivize practices that produce ‘ecosystem services’.

Although a partner we are working with in South Africa, Meat Naturally Africa, is currently providing carbon offsetting payments (and not PES) to partnering livestock farmers – the logic is similar. Livestock farmers are paid a financial incentive to fix soil carbon through a set of co-designed grazing management plans.

Pastoral systems in South Africa may or may not be extensive. They have in part been shaped by policymaking connected to land reform and redistribution, which has itself been shaped by colonial legacies. In South Africa, livestock management is likely to be a ranching-type of system framed around rotational grazing logics, rather than transhumant methods that exploit the patchy distribution of resources in extensive areas. In Spain, landscapes and political-economic legacies are certainly different to South Africa, yet similar questions and problematics arise.

For example: how do we quantify the ‘value’ of an ecosystem service? What do we measure (the methodologies adopted to model carbon sequestration, for example)? And how do we cost-effectively monitor appropriate ‘good practices’ without falling into a surveillance logic? I already covered some of these aspects in a blogpost for the PASTRES programme, where I looked at whether PES can benefit pastoralists by reflecting on work on PES for pastoralists in Tunisia.

It’s not just about valuation and measurement, however. In South Africa, Spain and elsewhere, there are structural reasons why pastoralists are hindered in practising ‘good’ rangeland management. The way we talk about Payments for Ecosystem Services, as a financial incentive for NbS, cannot be divorced from these structural reasons. Furthermore, PES narratives should always consider why and how to disincentivize ‘bad’ rangeland management.

Structural reasons for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ livestock farming

An important step is to understand what we value in grassland ecologies and how this is understood and measured.

At the workshop in Spain, discussions focused on generational renewal in rangeland stewardship; and how pastoral production systems that are more or less ‘extensive’ can provide ecosystem services related to wildfire prevention, carbon fixation, improved watershed management (water quality) and more generally conservation in protected areas.

Comments such as “animals are not machines”, “it takes more than a generation to regenerate 1 cm of soil”, “ if you cannot measure you cannot remunerate”, or “policies are designed for heirs and not newcomers” boil down to questions around scale and time (and timing). But they also suggest that market-oriented solutions designed by behavioural economists are ill-suited to ‘incentivize’ livestock management systems that are truly ‘climate-smart’ in the long-run.

The models and values we use to understand grasslands are important. Different grassland ecosystems fall and/or shift between points on an imagined continuum that range from equilibrium to non-equilibrium-like behaviours. These differences are reflected in different biotic (organism-based) and edaphic (soil-related) reactions to ‘disturbances’ (such as fire and grazing) in the long, medium and short-term, and at different spatial scales.

Rangeland ecologists use different ecosystem models to understand livestock-grassland interactions, and this aspect also alters our understanding of ‘overgrazing’. Political ecologists and anthropologists emphasize how this influences the normative frameworks in which we design policies.

Overgrazing, one of the factors that contributes to rangeland degradation, is defined by the amount of time spent grazing on an area and not the number of livestock present – though both variables are obviously important. Differences in the way we understand ‘overgrazing’ determine, for example, how restoration in grasslands is understood. In order to have a holistic approach in understanding pastoralism, the specific gradients on which human–rangeland systems can be arrayed include issues of variability, restoration, resilience, adaptation to disturbances, land-use change, land-tenure security, and effective governance. Accounting for complexity is also important for how we talk about PES for pastoralists.

For pastoral scholars these lines of argument are now well-developed. For example livestock mobility in variable ecosystems remains key in enabling ‘climate-smart’ and adaptive livestock production – in terms of efficiency in protein production , food security, and ecosystem provision – especially given climate change.

Yet policy-making continues to be dominated by sedentist logics, market-oriented solutions, and reductive ideas around ‘balance in nature’ originating in northern temperate climates.

PES models designed in temperate climates are ill-suited to compensate livestock farmers living in arid climates, or those who operate with different spatial-temporal logics where livestock mobility and grazing patterns differ, and where biotic and edaphic dynamics are more variable, operating within different timeframes and rhythms. Certain ecosystems are increasingly exhibiting non-equilibrium behaviours, where the climate becomes more erratic and/or more dry. In these settings, adopting ‘temperate’, ‘sedentist’ and market-oriented thinking in the design of PES is hugely problematic.

For example, PES are currently framed and designed in ways that implicitly penalize open-range livestock migration while supporting fenced rotation practices. This is partly because ecosystem valuation in extensive systems is practically hard (and expensive) to measure and monitor. We are more likely for example to fund, adopt and apply PES policies in temperate climates, where land and livestock ownership is clear, and where soil carbon measurement and ‘biodiversity’ impacts are relatively easier and cheaper to measure (for example because of access to ‘scientific’ expertise and know-how from the global North).

Given that PES schemes are tied to measuring outputs and variables within controlled environments, the risk is that PES are more likely to be paid out to certain kinds of farmers: larger livestock-keepers, who operate rotational grazing logics on private property that can be fenced; farmers who have the financial means to formalize operations (in terms of access to certification, subsidies etc…); or those who can adhere to 10-year grazing management plans, because they operate in relatively predictable socio-ecological environments. This risks leaving out ‘grazing communities’ and small-scale farmers who adopt extensive practices with different logics.

Furthermore the fact that for example in Europe small-scale ‘new entrants’ farmers face important land access challenges, yet they are proving to be ecologically-minded and desirable stewards. For example, young neo-pastoralists face challenges to access contiguous land and good quality grazing, especially as they are being pushed out by energy transition-led grabs, that typically grab ‘marginal’ and ‘abandoned’ land – where pastoralists mostly operate. As land is acquired by carbon-cowboys and ‘reforestation’ projects, or nature reserves that exclude livestock farmers and ideas of rewilding that displace livestock farming, one is left to wonder who will be left on the ground to benefit from PES schemes.

The truth is that most pastoral production systems have been hugely altered due to dependence on subsidy schemes, land fragmentation and aggressive meat and milk markets. ‘Bad grazing practices’ are generally not the fault of livestock-keepers, but the result of shifting resource distributions and are therefore a political-economic question. Until these underlying and structural problems are tackled, PES solutions remain palliative and do not tackle unequal access to resources.

PES narratives should always consider why and how to disincentivize ‘bad’ rangeland management

Taking this argument forwards, current PES narratives risk distorting what is ‘good practice’ in such a way that we lose sight of what is ‘bad practice’ – and therefore lose sight of the principle that the polluter should pay. In other words – the language (and logic) we use defines what is “normal” or “good” and where we draw the line between a good and bad practice. This video clip may help understand what I mean:

(watch between 36:17 and 37:12).

The key question raised by this man is about what is ‘normal’ – and the fact that how we name things is important in defining what is ‘normal’. He speaks of the incongruence of using the term ‘organic tomato’. Biological or organically produced vegetables should be the ‘norm’, while ‘pesticide-filled tomatoes’ should be called what they are. Instead, we find ourselves accepting that the norm is industrially produced vegetables, and differentiating what is organic – which has become a premium produce (that only some can afford).

This logic is relevant to PES narratives. Why do we need to incentivize ‘good practices’ while not disincentivizing ‘bad practices’? Why do we need to “normalize” what is a bad practice while suggesting that we need to pay a premium for a “good” practice?

The logic of ‘polluter pays’ is increasingly being replaced by the idea that in order to tackle climate change, polluters can compensate while continuing to pollute. Although slightly different, PES valuations that adopt market-based valuations of ‘nature’ proposed by climate finance enthusiasts, risk obfuscating the true cost of ‘bad’ practices.

Unless we come to terms with this, and enforce the idea that polluters pay, PES continue to be at best a distraction (and an expensive one), and at worst a playground for experiments in behavioural economics. This is why PES should always consider why and how to disincentivize ‘bad’ rangeland management.

The power of networks

I would like to conclude this think-piece with a promising example of “Shepherds of Sustainability” that came out of the workshop. The premise is that extensive pastoralists need to organize because “networks create trust”, and “grazing in networks” could be a solution to the problem of scale in ecosystem provision.

Ganaderas en Red is a collective of female pastoralists and a network of ecosystem-stewards operating across Spain, across different ecosystems. Since its inception in 2016 it has grown to 200 members with 67K followers on Facebook. The screening at the workshop of its new documentary “Mujeres de viento, tierra y ganado” showcases a care-based, self-organized support group that are concerned with themes that range from maternity, to labour conditions and isolation, to relevant policy campaigns (PorOtraPac), to flora and fauna monitoring and conservation.

If we can find ways to create and sustain networks of ‘good practices’ while tackling ‘bad practices’, perhaps we may overcome reductionist ways of thinking about complex systems, such as grassland ecologies.