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Comparative Analysis of the Conflicts Between Carp Pond Farming and the Protection of Otters (Lutra lutra) in Upper Lusatia and South Bohemia

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Human - Wildlife Conflicts in Europe

Part of the book series: Environmental Science and Engineering ((ENVSCIENCE))

Abstract

Protection of the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) has been successful in recent years but is increasingly running into conflict due to the damage caused on the fish stock in ponds aquaculture. In this chapter we compare the conflicts in two regions with a long history of carp farming—Upper Lusatia in Saxony (Germany) and South Bohemia in the Czech Republic, teasing out the factors which amplify or attenuate the conflicts. We show that financial compensation for the damage occurred is insufficient to mitigate the conflict or stop it from becoming worse. To succeed in long term, a set of mitigation measures, both financial and non-financial, should be deployed. These measures perform best when they are spatially differentiated and tailored to the size of farms and farming practices.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The analysis reflects the period up to 2004. More recent developments of the conflicts reported here and the attempts to cope with are not addressed in this article.

  2. 2.

    For the German case study, socio-economic indicators are reported for both the study area Upper Lusatia and the state of Saxony as a whole. This is because a number of indicators – especially those related to the fisheries sector presented later – are unavailable for just the study area itself.

  3. 3.

    We adopted the exchange rate of 1 Euro (EUR) = 0.85797 US Dollar (USD) and 31.68 Czech Krone (CZK) as of 02.01.2002.

  4. 4.

    Data gathered from the Saxon State Office for Agriculture, Department of Fisheries in 2004, own calculations.

  5. 5.

    Compare Klenke et al. (2013) and Poledníková et al. (2013) for further information on the respective programs.

  6. 6.

    Economic losses in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries caused by protected species are understood as ‘hardship’ when they exceed a certain amount.

  7. 7.

    NAK stands for “Naturschutz und Erhalt der Kulturlandschaft” – nature protection and conservation of cultural landscapes and is part of the general program for environmentally sound agriculture.

  8. 8.

    Carp prices dropped (after constant growth until 1997) in the period 1997–2000 by 30 %, stabilizing at ca. 83 % of the 1997 price level.

  9. 9.

    Compare Klenke et al. (2013, in this book) for a damage assessment based on otter numbers and daily food uptake resulting in approximately 17,000 € annual damage to fish farms. Although the rule-of-thumb assessment by the Department of Fisheries leads to slightly higher annual damage estimates, both approaches finally lead to the same conclusion regarding a potential overcompensation of damage, if both compensation schemes are considered together.

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Acknowledgments

This work was kindly supported by the European Commission under contract no. HPMD-CT-2001-00117 and under the 5th Framework Program (5th FP) Project “FRAP” (Development of a procedural Framework for Action Plans to Reconcile conflicts between large vertebrate conservation and the use of biological resources: fisheries and fish-eating vertebrates as a model case), contract number EVK 2-CT-2002-00142-FRAP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change, Castello 5252, 30122, Venice, Italy

    Jaroslav Myšiak & Irene Ring

  2. Department of Economics, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig, Permoserstr. 15, 04318, Leipzig, Germany

    Jaroslav Myšiak & Kathleen Schwerdtner Máñez

  3. Department of Social Sciences, Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Fahrenheitstrasse 6, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Kathleen Schwerdtner Máñez

Authors
  1. Jaroslav Myšiak
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  2. Kathleen Schwerdtner Máñez
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Correspondence to Jaroslav Myšiak .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Conservation Biology, Helmholtz Centre for Envrmnt Research, Permoserstraße 15, Leipzig, 04318, Germany

    Reinhard A. Klenke

  2. Environmental Research, Department of Economics, UFZ—Helmholtz Centre for, Permoserstr. 15, Leipzig, 04318, Germany

    Irene Ring

  3. Management, University of Natural Resources, Institute of Wildlife Biology and Game, Gregor Mendel Str. 33, Wien, 1180, Austria

    Andreas Kranz

  4. Research (DIFRES), Dept. Inland Fisheries, Danish Institute for Fisheries, Vejlsoevej 39, Silkeborg, 8600, Denmark

    Niels Jepsen

  5. Department of Environmental Politics, UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Envmnt Resrch, Permoserstraße 15, Leipzig, 04318, Germany

    Felix Rauschmayer

  6. Leipzig-Halle GmbH, Department of Conservation Biology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Envrmnt Resrch, Permoserstraße 15, Leipzig, 04318, Sachsen, Germany

    Klaus Henle

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Myšiak, J., Schwerdtner Máñez, K., Ring, I. (2013). Comparative Analysis of the Conflicts Between Carp Pond Farming and the Protection of Otters (Lutra lutra) in Upper Lusatia and South Bohemia. In: Klenke, R., Ring, I., Kranz, A., Jepsen, N., Rauschmayer, F., Henle, K. (eds) Human - Wildlife Conflicts in Europe. Environmental Science and Engineering(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-34789-7_7

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