Ecology and bioeconomy: an introduction

Wolfgang Haber

p. 11-15

Bioeconomy has several precursors and parallels. When Ernst Haeckel in 1866 coined the term ‘ecology,’ he defined it, following concepts of the 17th and 18th century, as ‘Economy of Nature.’ At that time, economy was already established as a scientific discipline, which ecology reached only 100 years later. When environmental protection came up, induced by the increasing damages caused by the techno-industrial development, it lead to new ways in economy. This resulted in the 1980s in the establishment of ‘Ecological Economics,‘ from which originated ‘Sustainable Development’ as guideline for the 21st century. In addition, at the end of the 1960s, ‘Bioeconomy’ was conceived, which in spite of overlapping with ecological and green economy achieved political weight. In 2007, the European Union decided on a bioeconomy concept for economic innovations with preference of biological resources for the industry, in particular as energy sources. In Germany, a ‘Bioeconomy Council’ was established, which in 2015 organized the first ‘Global Bioeconomy Summit.’ The implementation of bioeconomy, however, is being impeded by the required fundamental transformations of economic and social policies. Moreover, even among environmentalists the bioeconomy concept is being disputed, above all because on the earth’s finite land surface, the production capacities of biological resources are limited, and food production requires priority. This symposium will contribute to the discussion of these problems, including understanding and application of bioeconomy, utilization and conservation of biological resources. 

The integration of ecology and bioeconomy – agri-environment measures as an example

Philipp Mennig und Johannes Sauer

p. 17-30, 1 coloured- and 5 black-and-white figures

The bioeconomy concept is considered an important element in the transition to a more sustainable future. Primarily characterized by its special emphasis on renewable resources and their efficient, innovative use, it is also oriented towards natural cycles and links resource use to environmental conservation. While petroleum-based products are already gradually being replaced by biological alternatives, the environmental burdens of the agricultural production process that generates these alternatives remain problematic and counteract the bioeconomic idea of sustainability. From an economic point of view, market failure is the cause of excessive environmental pollution. In order to counter environmental degradation resulting from market failure, agri-environment measures were introduced as an integral part of the European agricultural policy in the early 1990s. However, the fact that agriculture still puts tremendous pressure on the environment casts doubt on the effectiveness of the introduced measures. A poor implementation of the economic theory underlying the measures may explain their lack of effectiveness. This contribution examines this hypothesis and concludes that a close look at the theory and its implementation reveals a need for adjustments.

Sustainable forestry and timber management as a basis for bioeconomy

Gabriele Weber-Blaschke

p. 31-46, 7 coloured figures, 2 tables

In general, the goal of bioeconomy is the transformation of the fossil-based to a bio-based economy. Within bioeconomy, the forest and wood sector plays an important role in climate protection because of its mitigation potential and sequestration capacity regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Besides the traditional utilization of wood for energy services and material applications, bioeconomic approaches in the forest and wood sector include the innovative development of textiles, micro fibers, bio-plastics, cosmetics and platform chemicals from wood residues. This aims to use the renewable, albeit limited, resource ‘wood’ more efficiently and sustainably, applying the concepts of a circular economy and cascading resource use. By assessing ecological, economic and social impacts over a product’s life cycle, more sustainable product lines can be identified. Such identification has to be based on material flow analyses. Through such analyses, society’s demands at the local, regional and global level, regarding not only consumer behavior, but also people’s working and living conditions can be assessed under sustainability aspects. It is essential for such analyses to integrate also the traditional uses of wood. A sustainable forest management that preserves the ecosystem ‘forest’, however, is the fundamental basis for any wood-based bioeconomy.

Increasing productivity and sustainability via modern plant breeding

Chris-Carolin Schön

p. 47-58, 6 coloured figures

Genetic improvement of crops plays a pivotal role in meeting challenges arising from human population growth, increasing consumption, climate change and depletion of natural resources. Modern plant breeding has been very successful in generating new varieties that are resource efficient and highly productive. Simultaneous improvement of productivity and sustainability is possible as long as breeding goals are clearly defined. As a consequence of divergent expectations from growers, consumers and stakeholders conflicts of interest can arise in the choice of breeding goals. Here, conflicting goals and trade-offs with respect to productivity and resource efficiency as well as between short and long term breeding strategies will be discussed. High-throughput phenotyping and genotyping methods that increase selection gain per unit time offer solutions for increasing the efficiency of breeding programs. In addition, recent advancements in genome-based prediction and genome editing can make native diversity accessible for breeding and can broaden the genetic diversity of our crops. 

Bioeconomic principles for a sustainable management of free-living freshwater fishes

Robert Arlinghaus

p. 59-70, 3 coloured and 4 black-and-white figures, 2 tables

Bioeconomic principles rarely guide the sustainable management of inland fisheries. Yet, they are crucial not only to assess the importance of the fisheries sector but also to determine optimal regulations that suit fisher wishes while being biologically sustainable. From a macroeconomic perspective, today, recreational fisheries dominate inland fisheries. Expenditure by recreational anglers creates 52000 jobs and feeds an economic sector worth 5.2 billion euro annually. This economic impact is larger than the one of the commercial fisheries sector in Germany. The economic importance of recreational fisheries can be properly addressed using bio-economic models and approaches. However, nature conservation groups seek to limit, if not entirely constrain, access to lakes and rivers by anglers, which constraints using bioeconomic principles for the development of recreational fisheries. Research conducted in my laboratory has recently shown that angler-managed lakes hold communities of organisms of similar richness and conservation value or even higher values (fish) than unmanaged lakes. For the future, it is advisable to 1) explicitly consider angling targets in water management, 2) build, promote and integrate angler organizations, 3) foster diversified management, 4) set the right harvesting signals and 5) improve monitoring.

Bioeconomy helps maintaining insect diversity

Wolfgang W. Weisser

^{p. 71-77, 1 black-and-white figure}

The term ‘bio-economy’ focusses attention on the biology and its laws as basic of modern value-added chains. This is also the major challenge regarding sustainability. Bio-economy cannot be sustainable if agricultural and forestry production underlying the production of raw materials are not sustainable. In this context, sustainability includes not only components like energy efficiency and carbon footprint, but also the preservation of biodiversity and soils. Up to now, efforts to achieve a balance between biomass production and preservation of ecosystems and their services have not been very successful, as the currently discussed loss of insect diversity shows. Today, many of the technologies that operate under the label bio-economy are not new and innovative, but old and not sustainable, such as the burning of biomass to obtain energy. The assumption, that products made from biomass are more sustainable than products made from oil needs to be critically evaluated and proven. Bio-economy may be a chance to halt the loss in biodiversity, if it the possibilities offered by digitalization, plant breeding and technological development are used.

New concepts for an environmentally compatible soil management

Sebastian Wolfrum und Johannes Burmeister

p. 79-90, 10 coloured figures

A healthy soil has balanced physical, chemical and biological components. Many of these components are well known, but hardly noticed in practice. Climate change, with longer periods of drought and higher rainfall and erosion risks, requires a reconsideration of the importance of soil management. In the future, high humus content and an active, diverse soil life will become even more important for stress-tolerant crop systems and the conservation of biodiversity. The required actions are basically known, but so far, they are implemented only in organic farming, which relies on crop rotations increasing the soil humus content, organic fertilization (mainly dung and compost), long soil resting periods, permanent land cover, long-lived crops, and semi-natural structures as retreats for soil animals. Meeting the growing demand for renewable biological resources, which are the ultimate basis for bioeconomics, will require new production systems, ideally allowing true permaculture. For agriculture to move towards more spatially and temporally diversified land-use forms it will be important to (i) increase awareness of the problems through scientifically sound and practicable indicators, (ii) employ rewards and motivation through agricultural policy and support, and (iii) increase education, advise, and learning, preferably involving all stakeholders.

Plants suitable for biomass production in a sustainable bioeconomy

Iris Lewandowski und Moritz von Cossel

p. 91-104, 7 colored figures, 2 tables

Bioeconomy comprises the production of all goods that stem from bio-based, renewable raw materials. This contribution focuses on the production of biomass from crops cultivated as energy crops and on ecosystem services that go beyond the production function. Today, many industrial and energy crops are annuals that have been diverted from food and feed production. Tomorrow’s crops need to be more stress-tolerant and more water-, nutrient- and land-use efficient. They need to be able to provide ecosystem services, should become more diverse and should enable a multiple and integrated biomass use. Due to climate change, it is to be expected that the area of marginal agricultural land characterized by biophysical constraints, such as drought and salinity, will increase. Future biomass crops need to be able to handle such conditions and at the same time maintain or even increase the resilience of these areas. In many cases, these requirements can best be fulfilled by perennial biomass crop production systems, such as Miscanthus, cup plant, and wild plant mixtures. Such perennial systems can help avoid erosion, improve soil fertility and, especially in the case of wild plant mixtures, enhance biodiversity. Their production, and thus also their benefits, can be integrated at the landscape and farm level, for example, by cultivating them on biophysically or economically marginal agricultural land, including sub-optimally shaped or distant fields and ‘greening’ areas. In this way, biomass for a growing bioeconomy could be provided without compromising social-ecological requirements. 

Site-specific nitrogen fertilization: an economic-ecological perspective

Markus Gandorfer

p. 105-114, 1 coloured and 1 black-and-white figure, 1 table

Having been researched and developed for over 20 years, site-specific nitrogen fertilization is now being applied in practice for many years. The approaches may be categorized as mapping approaches relying on historical data, online approaches using sensors to determine the required amounts during the fertilization process, and combinations of these. The expectations of site-specific nitrogen fertilization are high, as it should increase nitrogen efficiency and thereby provide ecological and economic advantages. However, the current level of implementation of the technology lags behind expectations, especially in small-scale agricultural regions. The reasons are manifold. While studies confirm the ecological advantages of site-specific fertilization, its economic effects often remain limited, mainly because a flat region around the economic optimum of the site-specific nitrogen production function. The challenge from an economic point of view is thus to identify fields with a high economic potential for site-specific fertilization. Additionally, fertilizing algorithms still need to be improved.

Conservation and utilization of nature and landscape in the context of bioeconomy: one step forward?

Beate Jessel

p. 115-128, 2 coloured and 1 black-and-white figure

Bioeconomy comprises more than biomass production. In line with sustainability postulates, it should integrate resource use, nature conservation, and social and economic effects. Bioeconomy is therefore a concept that is subject to continuous development. Its boundaries must be continuously negotiated with regard to opportunities and risks in a social discourse. Designing an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable bioeconomy thus requires research and development, the adherence to “safe limits” as well as social participation. Based on these premises, this paper highlights three topics: Firstly, the primary sectors of forestry and agriculture that do not allow unlimited growth despite technological progress, since the production basis “land” is limited and since any intensification of forestry and agriculture will be accompanied by landscape changes and the loss of biodiversity. Secondly, genetic-engineering innovations that will increase the intensity of agricultural production and thus also exacerbate existing biodiversity loss and climate change. And lastly, it pinpoints how bioeconomics presents an opportunity for society to benefit from technological innovations, ideally covering the entire value chain, industrial utilization and processing of biomass as well as the application of biological knowledge.