INVESTING IN PROTECTED AREAS AND LARGE NATURE RESERVES: CREATING REGIONAL VALUE

»National Natural Landscapes« is an umbrella term for the national parks, biosphere reserves and nature parks in Germany with an esti-mated area of more than 10,000 ha (see Figure 26). Beyond the import-ant role of protecting biodiversity, the ecosystems in these protected areas also provide a broad range of ecosystem services which benefit society as a whole. Areas that meet specific requirements (depending on the protected area status) which are to be preserved or developed are designated as protected areas. In nature parks for example, key criteria include diverse and unique landscapes as well as scenic beauty, together with particular cultural-historical importance and its role in recreation and sustainable tourism.

Protecting areas in this way helps to capture the value and enhance the status of historical cultivated landscapes and their ecosystem services: Small-scale structures like hedges are retained, developed and maintained with additional subsidies. Since agro-industrial use often has a lower status in such areas and there is more emphasis on sustainable land use and landscape management, the general pres-sures on ecosystems associated with harmful emissions from agricul-ture tend to be lower. -> Regulating Services such as the self-purifi-cation functions of waterbodies and soils benefit in particular. As a general rule, these positive effects can also be achieved in smaller protected areas. The European Commission estimates the overall eco-nomic benefits of these services for the -> Natura 2000 Euro - pean-wide network of protected areas at 223 – 314 billion Euro per year (EU Commission, 2015).

National Natural Landscapes are also used for recreation and offer aesthetic and spiritual experiences (see also section 2.4). These large scale protected areas valorise their ecosystem services with a host of measures and infrastructures: Examples include contract-based nature conservation, special nature offerings for tourism (cf. Figure 27), informa-tion centres, and the support of regional brands. Large scale protected areas act as a label (in the sense of a special designation of products) to support regional marketing.

This has been established especially by the introduction of the um-brella brand »National Natural Landscapes« (see Figure 28) for Ger-many‘s large scale protected areas. Surveys suggest that the status as protected area is important for tourism, particularly in the case of national parks and biosphere reserves. In the Bayerischer Wald National Park, 45.8 % of visitors are classed as »tourists with high national park affinity«, for whom the protected area played a pivotal role in their travel plans (Woltering et al., 2008). This tourist demand provides an additional effect for the regional economy alongside the

FIGURE 26 Overview of the large nature reserves and »national nature landscapes« in Germany.

(Source: Job, 2015)

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN RURAL AREAS 56

economic effects listed above. Tourist expenditure can have a major impact on a regional economy, thanks to direct positive income effects and indirect multiplier effects.

In recent years, all German national parks and selected biosphere reserves have undergone an economic impact analysis to examine the effects of tourism on income (Job et al., 2009; Job et al., 2013). The result: Large scale protected areas have a positive influence, both on the number of visitors and on their average daily expenditures.

Among national parks, depending on their size, gross tourism turn-over ranges from 1.9 million Euro in the Unteres Odertal National Park, up to more than 27.8 m Euro in Germany’s oldest national park, Bayerischer Wald, to more than 1 billion Euro in the Schleswig-Holstein-isches Wattenmeer national park (Metzler et al., 2016). Results for the other national parks and selected biosphere reserves in Germany con-firm these financial magnitudes. As well as the natural features, these economic effects also depend on the aforementioned bundle of measures and infrastructures, which allow more intensive use by nature tourists, provide more attractive educational opportunities for sustainable development, and enhance the importance of natural capital in the visitors’ perceptions.

Taking the Bayerischer Wald National Park as an example, we can see at regional level: tourism attributable to the protected area can generate significant added-value, which exceeds losses from land use restrictions (Job and Mayer, 2012) e. g. relating to forestry use, in-cluding the regional timber processing industry. Depending on the estimated cubic metres (cm) of timber that can be harvested each year in the national park area (150,000 – 175,000 cm), the assumed round log prices (40 – 80 Euro/cm), variable sawn timber prices (130 – 180 Euro/cm) and the multipliers of the wood-processing indus-tries, the lost revenues range from 5.0 – 10.8 million Euro/year. Com-pared with the total real net output from national park tourism of 13.5 million Euro/year (Woltering et al., 2008), the lost revenues from regu lar forestry and timber are more than compensated by the reve-nues from nature tourism in the national park (Mayer, 2013).

FIGURE 28 Logo of the umbrella brand »National Natural Land-scapes«.

FIGURE 27 Tourists watching the 2013 crane migration in the Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft National Park.

(Photograph: Cornelius Merlin)

While a number of studies have examined the positive economic effects from tourism on regional development in the National Nature Landscapes, no comparable studies are available for other important ecosystem services such as climate protection, flood protection and water purification. Even the Natura 2000 network of protected areas in Europe, covering almost 16 % of Germany’s national territory and one of its top nature conservation mechanisms, still needs more re-search to pinpoint and evaluate these additional benefits, besides the primary objective of conserving biodiversity. One thing is clear how-ever: Investing in the natural capital of Germany’s protected areas creates regional value.

FIGURE 29 Group of visitors in

‚Bayerischer Wald‘ National Park.

(Photograph: Thomas Michler, National park administration Bayerischer Wald (NPV BW))

3 SAFEGUARDING THE NATURAL