The delivery of ecosystem services through results-based agri-environment payment schemes (RBPS): three Irish case studies

Abstract

Abstract:A number of European Innovation Partnerships (EIPs) were funded by the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine through the 2013–2020 Rural Development Programme (RDP). Their objectives relate to restoring, preserving and enhancing ecosystems. Three of the EIPs—Caomhnú Árann, the Hen Harrier Project and the Pearl Mussel Project—have varying targets and scale but they all pay for the delivery of ecosystem services whilst also supporting vibrant, rural farming communities. This is achieved by using a results-based payments approach where farmers are rewarded for the quality of habitat that they maintain on their farms in addition to the food products that they produce. The EIPs allow for an adaptive approach, which means programmes can be tailored to meet the specific needs and challenges of a particular biogeographical area. In this way, vital ecosystem services such as biodiversity, conservation of nationally rare species and habitats, carbon sequestration and storage, improved water quality, agricultural biodiversity, flood resilience and fire resilience can be delivered, protected and conserved while farmers are rewarded for doing so. These three EIPs provide a model by which this wide range of ecosystem services can be delivered through a results-based agri-environment (AE) payments approach, using habitat quality as a result indicator or surrogate for these services to which payment levels are linked.