Compensation for environmental services and rural communities: lessons from the Americas

Abstract

In principle, payments for environmental services -such as watershed management, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration -can advance the goals of both environmental protection and poverty reduction. A review of recent initiatives in the Americas suggests, however, that this desirable combination is not automatic. If payments for environmental services (PES) schemes are to be an effective vehicle for strengthening livelihoods in poor rural communities, they must be designed with that objective firmly in mind. This paper draws key lessons from diverse experiences in

Forest carbon projects in the Ukrainian Carpathians: an assessment of potential community impacts and benefits

“…While community members are skeptical of receiving direct financial payments from the sale of carbon, their anticipation of other benefits that improve the local social, economic, and ecological situation supports the view that direct financial payments are not the only way community members are willing to be compensated for impacts from forest carbon projects (Rosa et al 2004). However, corruption, the use of fraudulent activity for personal gain, may be an important issue to consider in developing forest carbon projects in Ukraine.…”

Biofuel as social fuel: Introducing socio-environmental services as a means to reduce global inequity?

“…[-FAO, 2007, p.97] In the Literature, PES have often been discussed with respect to their potential as a 'just source of reward' for often poor rural dwellers who -in the past -have consciously produced environmental services in care of the environment without any (financial) compensation (see e.g., Bulte et al, 2008;Fisher and Treg, 2007;Gauvin et al, 2010;Greiner and Stanley, 2013, p.6 f.;Noordwijk van et al, 2004;Rosa et al, 2003;Shilling and Osha, 2003). Although PES are generally discussed as a promising potential option to reduce poverty in agricultural, rural settings via direct payments, while concurrently improving environmental management (see e.g., FAO, 2007, p.97;Gauvin et al, 2010, p.499;Swallow et al, 2009, p.3), questions of unintentional adverse side effects have increasingly been raised.…”

“…To the extent that the PES scheme is use restricting, i.e., it caps planned forest-product extraction or agricultural conversion, groups involved in these activities may result in loss of employment or informal-sector income. • If PES is locally lucrative, it could increase competition for PES-eligible land, possibly to the detriment of the weakest actors' access to that land (Rosa et al, 2003). • Long established practices may be hard to overcome.…”

Pricing Industrial Discharge Quota (IDQ): A Model Reflecting Opportunity Cost of Performing Ecological Responsibility

“…Another measure to lessen the acute contradiction is Watershed Payment for Ecological Service (W-PES) [10][11][12], which aims to fix the shortcomings of Major Functional Areas Planning by compensating the upstream in government means. Countries such as America [13] and Germany [14] have made some achievements in Catskills and Elbe, respectively (two important watershed in the two countries), with this approach. However, it is also with limitation in China for it depends much on government's management and barely takes advantage of market power [15][16][17].…”