Selective Targeting in Environmentally Sensitive Areas: Implications for Farmers and the Environment

This paper examines socio-economic and environmental implications of targeting strategies adopted in one of the UK's Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs): Cambrian Mountains ESA, northern part. Larger farms with larger remnant habitats have benefited disproportionately from scheme participation and payments. This has created a two-tier system of farmers inside and outside the scheme within the designated ESA. Smaller wildlife habitats on farms at the margins of the ESA have been neglected by this selective targeting, which has placed greater emphasis on the conservation of large contiguous habitats in the centre of the area. Farmers of marginal ESA eligibility are disillusioned, as they are excluded both from ESA payments and potential participation in schemes outside the ESA area. Two alternative scenarios are suggested. First, ESA scheme prescriptions could be changed to allow farmers with only small or dispersed habitats to enter the scheme (e.g. very high payments for the first few hectares of a habitat entered). Second, the boundaries of the ESA could be redrawn to exclude the clusters of small non-participants. This would enable these farms to make full use of other schemes currently not available for farmers within ESAs (e.g. Tir Cymen or Countryside Stewardship Scheme).