Der Wald-WildKonflikt - was kann die Forstökonomie zur Lösung beitragen? (Essay)

Abstract

Core parameters of forest economics such as land expectation value or highest revenue show that damage caused by wild ungulates can critically influence the economic success of forest enterprises. When assessing and evaluating the damage in order to calculate damage compensation, methods are applied in Germany that look either into the past ("cost value methods") or into the future ("expected value methods"). The manifold uncertainties related to this evaluation over long-Term production periods are taken into account within a framework of conventions through strongly simplifying assumptions. Only lately, the increased production risk due to game-induced loss of species diversity is also considered. Additional aspects that should be taken into account in the future are the loss of climate-Adapted species, the change of the insurance values of forest ecosystems and the impossibility of specific management systems such as single-Tree selection forestry due to the influence of game. Because of high transaction costs when assessing the damage, financial compensation should only be the "ultimate measure" and a meditation between stakeholder groups with the goal to find a cooperative solution before the damage occurs should be preferred.