3. Methods
5.2 Influence of attitudes on choices
Our CE has shown that respondents of both regions are willing to pay for trainings of additional income sources. A reason could be the fear of losing pasture access in the next years due to the NPs and a search for new opportunities.
In Lake Arpi the WTP for tour-guiding training is significant, while it is not in Samtskhe-Javakheti. This may show a trust into the NP as an improvement of living conditions and a chance to generate income out of it. The results have proven that a positive attitude towards the NPs result in both regions in a higher WTP for tour-guiding training.
A positive attitude has also influence on the bee-keeping training. WTP is increasing with a more positive attitude. A reason may be that a positive attitude leads to a willingness to generate income from a less resource intensive alternative.
120 The WTA for a ban to collect wild plants in Lake Arpi is even increasing slightly with having a positive attitude towards the national park. More than half of the households’
income is subsistence income, and collection of natural goods is necessary for people.
Therefore we suggest that the dependence from natural goods even transcends the positive attitude. No WTP exists in both regions for a permission to collect wild plants more extensively. This may suggest that natural resources, expect pastureland, is mostly needed for home consumption and households do not want to draw profit out of them
Access to summer pasture is in the regions highly significant. The WTP in Samtskhe-Javakheti is higher than in Lake Arpi and may be explained by the less positive attitudes towards the NP found in the sample, as well as the as the fear of further use restrictions. In both regions a positive attitude influences the WTP. In Lake Arpi the WTP decreases about 0.11% for 1% more access to summer pasture. Lake Arpi respondents high trust in the NP and mention fewer worries about further use restriction concerning the pastureland. In Samtskhe-Javakheti the WTP increases about 0.14%. Respondents have overall more negative attitudes. Furthermore, respondents mention, independent from attitude fears about further use restrictions.
Therefore WTP even increases with a positive attitude.
5.3 Conclusion
We have seen that positive attitudes influence the WTP in both regions. A positive attitude is mostly linked with information about the NP and with socio factors.
Influences due to gender, age and education are visible in the project regions. In Lake Arpi, where small scale farmers of the buffer zone were widely involved in NP planning and informed projects in the region, more positive attitudes are found. People have less fear concerning their future and more trust that they will not lose land and living conditions will improve.
Involving people of the buffer zones from the beginning the wish to be more involved into planning and decision making even increases. In Samtskhe-Javakheti people of the buffer zone were excluded from the planning and there is less trust, even the wish to participate in these important issues is low. Establishing a new MtPA in a region settled since centuries may therefore be done in a bottom-up way.
121 Our CE has shown that positive attitudes results in a lower WTP for the needed resource land and less positive attitudes in a higher WTP. The CE has also shown that trainings are a way of compensation. It could be possible that offering trainings to locals could generate also generate positive attitudes. Positive attitudes on the other hand raise the interest and WTP for biodiversity-friendly income alternatives. In both regions a main competitive resource of nature exists. The attitude towards the NP influences peoples WTP/WTA for it. But also NP management should keep in mind, that hidden competitive resources (like wild plants in Lake Arpi) are existing and important for household survival. A better attitude lead may lead to a more common protection of the region and locals could be interest to work in more eco-friendly agricultural alternative (e.g. WTP bee-keeping and tour-guiding trainings).
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IV
Restrictions in the access to summer pastures in the South Caucasus induce high monetary compensation demands by local smallholder
farmers
129 1. Introduction
Human land use and biodiversity conservation often result in conflicts between national park (NP) management and local habitants, as natural resources become competitive goods. Land use mostly occurs outside the administrative boundaries of a NP, but can have negative consequences for the protected area itself (Hansen &
DeFries 2007). Land use surrounding a protected area can threaten the conservation objectives inside the NP as the biodiversity is locked inside a small area (Baker 1992, Hansen & Rotella 2001). On the other hand, implementations or extensions of NPs regularly impose significant costs in form of use restrictions onto the rural population living close by (Bawa et al. 2004). In an ideal situation, land use management of national parks achieves a win-win solution, which satisfies human needs, while maintaining ecological functioning (Daily &Ellison 2002, Rosenzweig 2003).
Boundaries of national parks are influenced by and influence at the same time the sociological properties associated with rural land use and human communities in the vicinity (Machlis & Tichnell 1985). Therefore, for a better transition from agricultural used land to protected areas and reduction of negative influences, so-called inhabited buffer zones around the protected areas, with a limited or restricted land use are frequently used (Kintz et al. 2006).
People living close to the national parks in development or transition countries are often poor, have limited access to government services and no political power (Brandon & Wells 1992). As costs due to loss of access to natural resources inside the NP are often higher than local benefits, local communities often experience the implementation of strictly protected areas a as a threat to their livelihoods . Projects to support locals often take place around the strictly protected area. These areas are frequently referred to as “buffer zones”, even if they exist de lege (Brandon & Wells 1992).
In developing and transition countries land is a limiting factor to the improvement of the livelihood situation of locals, who mostly suffer from restrictions created to protected areas (PAs) in the adjacent region. Therefore, the management of buffer zones has to balance e.g. grazing areas. Independent from former losses of land, due to boundary settings, locals tend to respect PAs present boundaries. In future, however,
130 if their welfare or survival is threatened, they would probably ignore agreed regulation and push the generated edge inwards (Schonewald-Cox 1992).
The relationship between NPs and the local population was mostly studied in South America and Africa (e.g. Garcia-Amado et al. 2013, Sunderlin 2005). However, some results can be applied to the situation in transition countries such as Georgia and Armenia. In Georgia and Armenia, the rural non-farm economy was well-placed under socialism. Industries and factories related to agriculture were mostly located in rural areas as a sign of developing and industrializing (Davis et al. 2004). Agriculture at the same time was organized in big collectives and no small private farms were existing in the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the 1990 these collectives as well as rural industries collapsed with the breakdown of the Soviet Union, dramatically reducing income options for the local population. Furthermore, Georgia and Armenia were struck by war, further impoverishing vulnerable households either directly, by interrupted trade, or by the reduced ability of the nation state to initiate sustainable rural development (cf. Davis et al. 2014).
The land of the collectives was allotted to the population after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. For example, 20% of the national labour in Armenia was working in agriculture in the 1980ies, from 1990-1995 94% of the population practised subsistence farming (Lerman et al. 2003). But Armenia is a special example of the former Soviet Countries. The country suffered from a devastating earthquake at the end of the 1980s, which destroyed much of the country’s industry and infrastructure, plus the war with Azerbaijan triggered blockades that disrupted critical imports of energy and inputs. Labour migrated to rural areas, as the industry was in total disarray in the early 1990s. Land reforms were done soon and collective farms were split up and the land assigned to individuals. Georgia’s agricultural labour increased from 28%
to 76% after the demise of socialism (Lerman et al. 2003). A land market was first invented in the year 1996 (Mathijs & Swinnen 1998); it is still not working properly (Millns 2013).
Most regions of the Caucasus, including rather remote mountain areas, have been settled since time immemorial. Thus, the creation of strictly protected areas in this
“biodiversity hotspot” (Myers et al. 2003) directly concerns the interest of many rural populations. However, land use was not that considerable during Soviet times, it
131 became first important for subsistence farming in both countries after the system collapse (Davis et al. 2004). Understanding the worth and need of the used land can lead to important management options in the term of establishing or enlarging NPs.
But also giving locals the opportunity to generate income in other fields (related to agriculture and biodiversity protection) can be a way to manage the usage of the competitive resource land.
The present paper was designed to identify how restrictions of NPs can have influence on the willingness-to-pay/-accept (WTP/WTA) of access to grazing land and to give appropriate suggestions for right human-NP management options.