Environmental promises of products from regional parks The decision making process of environmental promises Diploma thesis Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Institute of Agricultural Economics Zurich, September 2006 Submitted by Patricia Steinmann Examiner: Prof. Dr. Bernard Lehmann Second examiner: Prof. Dr. Peter Rieder Supervisor: Sophie Réviron Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich ETH Agri-food and Agri-environmental Economics Group Head: Prof. Dr. Bernard Lehmann www.iaw.agrl.ethz.ch Institute for Agricultural Economics IAW ETH-Zentrum SOL CH-8092 Zurich Tel. +41 44 632 53 92 Fax +41 44 632 10 86 Acknowledgement Acknowledgement During my industrial placement at the Swiss Farmers Association I had to write a statement about the revision of the NHG. I considered the idea of improving the potential of marginal areas by establishing parks so interesting that I decided to dedicate my diploma thesis to this topic. I would like to thank the ETH for the education that helped me write this diploma thesis. My special thanks goes to Bernard Lehmann, Peter Rieder and Sophie Réviron, not only for their interesting lectures, but also for the supervision of this diploma thesis. When I learned park products can be labelled, I was even more in favor of the idea. When I shop I try to buy food from nearby or from organic production, as long as my restricted student’s budget allows this. Because I have been absorbed with writing over the last few months, my room mate Martin, his girlfriend Carmen and my boyfriend Sam were more or less feeding me. They kindly took my regional and organic wishes into consideration. They did a great (and delicious) job, for which I am very grateful. As indicated above I no longer life at home. Nevertheless, my family is very important to me. I want to thank my parents for supporting me in and being proud of my studies. Special thanks go to my siblings Philipp, Lexa and Cyril for occasionally distracting me from my studies. Writing a diploma thesis allows thorough absorption into a topic. It becomes difficult to understand that not everybody is perfectly acquainted with the topics of food labeling and park establishments. I would like to express thanks to Marguerite and especially to Madame Réviron for reading and rereading my work! In addition I thank all my friends, especially to Christian and Sam for endlessly listening to the progress of this diploma thesis. English is not my first language, and although I enjoy expressing myself in this language; some expressions are not perfect. I want to thank Nathi, Sarah and Peter Damary for correcting the most noticeable mistakes. Last but not least I want to thank all the interviewees for the most interesting conversations we shared. Furthermore, they showed me that it is one thing to study agro-ecology, but another to implement it! I II Summary Summary The Nature and Cultural Heritage Protection Act (NHG) is currently under revision. Due to discrepancies between Switzerland and other European Countries, it was perceived necessary to establish a legal framework for parks. This framework aims to improve the potential of marginal areas. This is, because hilly and mountain regions often suffer from economic problems. The revision of the NHG describes three types of parks. This thesis will concentrate on Regional Nature Parks. Once a park is registered on a federal level, it is possible to label products. Parks imply ecological or extensive production. Therefore, a park label would link both ecological criteria and place of production to the products. By linking symbolic capital to products it might be possible to get higher prices from consumers, which would, in turn, enhance marginal areas. National and park specific criteria for park products will be developed. National criteria will be decided on a federal level. Producers of park products will have to comply with these criteria. Each park must have park specific criteria aiming to enhance the region. Arising questions will be covered in this report. Questions such as: will park specific criteria include specific environmental requirements, for example organic production? Who will make the decision and how? To answer these questions, using theoretical results from economic sociology and political sciences, an in depth study of parks establishments was carried out, because the establishment will influence the decision making process of park specific criteria. Interviews carried out in the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch and Parc Ela showed that organic production is not feasible as park criterion for those regions, because it would lead to strong opposition. Furthermore, organic production is not necessarily the best way to increase park’s potentials when compared with extensive integrated production, what could be marketed to consumers as “local food”. Nevertheless, organic production may become more important. The implementation of the ecological quality decree (ÖQV) on one hand complies with many of the park aims and is on the other hand unlikely to evoke opposition. Therefore, for the two case studies the implementation of ÖQV is suggested as possible park specific criterion. Furthermore, the definition of park criteria has to be dynamic for which in both studied regions decision structures are present. III Diploma thesis Patricia Steinmann Summary of the contents 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 INITIAL SITUATION ....................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 OBJECTIVE: EVALUATE ENVIRONMENTAL PROMISES OF THE FUTURE PARK LABEL.............. 1 1.3 STRUCTURE OF THE PAPER .......................................................................................................... 3 2 PARKS IN SWITZERLAND......................................................................................................... 4 2.1 THE NEED FOR BROAD PROTECTION LEADS TO A NEW LEGAL FRAMEWORK........................... 4 2.2 THE THREE PARK CATEGORIES AND THE FOCUS ON REGIONAL NATURE PARKS.................. 10 2.3 THE PROCESS OF LABELLING..................................................................................................... 15 3 THEORETICAL ASPECTS........................................................................................................ 19 3.1 RELOCALISATION: BUILDING AND MAINTAINING SYMBOLIC CAPITAL .................................. 19 3.2 INVOLVEMENT / INDIFFERENCE / OPPOSITION TOWARDS A PROJECT.................................... 30 3.3 PERFORMANCE OF ORGANIC PRODUCTION .............................................................................. 33 4 METHODOLOGY........................................................................................................................ 44 4.1 SELECTION OF THE CASE STUDIES............................................................................................. 44 4.2 THE INTERVIEWS ........................................................................................................................ 45 4.3 EVALUATION OF THE INTERVIEWS ............................................................................................ 49 4.4 WEAKNESSES OF THE METHODS................................................................................................ 49 5 RESULTS FROM THE UNESCO BIOSPHERE ENTLEBUCH............................................ 51 5.1 PRESENTATION OF THE REGION ENTLEBUCH........................................................................... 51 5.2 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNESCO BIOSPHERE ENTLEBUCH......................................... 54 5.3 THE PROFILE OF THE UBE......................................................................................................... 68 5.4 CRITERIA FOR PARK PRODUCTS IN THE UBE ........................................................................... 71 6 RESULTS FROM PARC ELA .................................................................................................... 79 IV Summary of the contents 6.1 PRESENTATION OF PARC ELA.....................................................................................................79 6.2 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PARC ELA ..........................................................................................83 6.3 THE PROFILE OF PARC ELA ........................................................................................................96 6.4 CRITERIA FOR PARK PRODUCTS IN PARC ELA ..........................................................................98 7 DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS............................................................................................105 7.1 BUILDING A PARK: CASE STUDY RESULTS................................................................................105 7.2 CRITERIA FOR PARK PRODUCTS ...............................................................................................115 7.3 ORGANIC PRODUCTION IN PARKS OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE .............................................127 V Diploma thesis Patricia Steinmann Table of contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.............................................................................................................................I SUMMARY .............................................................................................................................................III SUMMARY OF THE CONTENTS .............................................................................................................IV