Lessons from community-based payment for ecosystem service schemes: from forests to rangelands

Abstract

Climate finance investments and international policy are driving new community-based projects incorporating payments for ecosystem services (PES) to simultaneously store carbon and generate livelihood benefits. Most community-based PES (CB-PES) research focuses on forest areas. Rangelands, which store globally significant quantities of carbon and support many of the world's poor, have seen little CB-PES research attention, despite benefitting from several decades of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) projects. Lessons from CBNRM suggest institutional considerations are vital in underpinning the design and implementation of successful community projects. This study uses documentary analysis to explore the institutional characteristics of three African community-based forest projects that seek to deliver carbon-storage and povertyreduction benefits. Strong existing local institutions, clear land tenure, community control over land management decision-making and up-front, flexible payment schemes are found to be vital. Additionally, we undertake a global review of rangeland CBNRM literature and identify that alongside the lessons learned from forest projects, rangeland CB-PES project design requires specific consideration of project boundaries, benefit distribution, capacity building for community monitoring of carbon storage together with awareness-raising using decision-support tools to display the benefits of carbon-friendly land management. We highlight that institutional analyses must be undertaken alongside improved scientific studies of the carbon cycle to enable links to payment schemes, and for them to contribute to poverty alleviation in rangelands.

It is getting hotter in here: determining and projecting the impacts of global environmental change on drylands

“…We believe that the topics treated here are in urgent need of conceptual advances in order to improve the livelihood of people living in drylands (e.g. desertification and management of natural resources to improve human well-being in developing areas [133,163]). We expect that the multidisciplinary, multi-organismal approach followed in this theme issue will advance our understanding of the projected effects of global change in drylands, and will stimulate further research on this important topic.…”

A demographic approach to study effects of climate change in desert plants

“…The simplicity of our modelling approach, whenever long-term demographic data is available, together with the robustness of the climatic projections, calls for its application to other species, particularly when considering the urgent need to understand responses to climate change of more desert species that might prove important in alleviating poverty. If our findings are applicable to other desert plant species, the implications for carbon storage [103,104], particularly below-ground, exploitation of natural resources [105], and self-sustainability should be re-evaluated in the context of the large amount of dryland human inhabitants [2], a number that is only expected to increase owing to desertification [3]. (a) Future directions Clearly, we are still far from achieving a detailed understanding of how climate change will affect desert plant species in general, or whether it will at all, given their potential for buffering abiotic stochasticity.…”

A Framework of Payment for Ecosystem Services to Protect Cropland: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta in China

“…The results showed that the framework is a more efficient alternative and complement to traditional regulatory approaches for handling the externality of environment protection. PES is also an effective method to balance the relationship between suppliers and beneficiaries [53][54][55]. By developing a formal, regional PES framework for cropland protection, we established an efficient method to protect cropland and to improve ecosystem services.…”