Payments for ecosystem services in relation to US and UK agri-environmental policy: disruptive neoliberal innovation or hybrid policy adaptation?

Abstract

This paper draws on ideas about policy innovation and adaptation to assess the extent to which 'payments for ecosystem services' (PES) can be seen as a challenge to traditionally more bureaucratic, state-centered ways of paying for the provisioning of environmental goods from agricultural landscapes through agri environmental policy (AEP). Focussing on recent experience in the United States and the UK, the paper documents the extent to which PES is now an established term of reference in AEP research and debate in both countries and postulates that this may usher in a new discourse of environmental provisioning in agriculture. The PES landscape is, however, currently highly fragmented and largely experimental, with 'PES-like' approaches being piloted in the field through partnerships between state agencies and localized private and charitable interests. State-supported AEP programs remain substantially intact, and rather than any displacement of state action, there appears to be a more gradual insertion of PES approaches and metrics into standard AEP operating procedures. This institutional stickiness is partly due to the continuing difficulty of agreeing the metrics necessary for measuring outcomes but may also be due to the politically well defended nature of traditional AEP entitlements and associated policy networks. We conclude by suggesting a need for further research to better understand these specifically political constraints and sources of resistance to PES and the ambiguous consequences for institutions, policy networks, rural communities and environment.

Payments for ecosystem services in the tropics: a closer look at effectiveness and equity

“…National or regional PES programs are currently implemented in countries like Costa Rica, Mexico, Ecuador, Vietnam, China, South Africa or the United States, while smaller regional programs have been tested in European countries like Germany and the UK [2]. Small-scale PES projects promoted by non-governmental organizations to enhance watershed protection and biodiversity conservation, as well as to protect carbon reservoirs and sinks under the umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change -as carbon offset and REDD+ projects -have also been developed worldwide [3].…”

Neoliberalising rural environments

“…If, as Dempsey and Robertson (2012) argue, 'ecosystem services' is fast becoming one of the organising environmental concepts of our times, then PES is the logical way to provision them via a market exchange. Indeed, Potter and Wolf (2014) speculate that a PES revolution in environmental provisioning on private lands is possible if commercial actors such as private water companies and other utilities begin to contract these services on a large…”

“…These include 'bottom-up' environmental initiatives, such as Canada's Environmental Farm Plans (Robinson, 2006) or Environmental Management Systems in Australia , through which rural producers develop plans to assess and better manage their environmental performance. They also include schemes (public and private) that use voluntary incentives to improve the environmental practices of rural producers, such as industry best management practices (Lockie and Higgins, 2007) and payments for the provision of ecosystem services (Higgins et al, 2012;Potter and Wolf, 2014;Robertson, 2004;WynneJones, 2013).…”

Assembling payments for ecosystem services in Wales

“…Nevertheless, developments continue to fall short of full marketization (c.f. Boisvert et al 2013;Potter and Wolf 2014). In earlier evaluations (Wynne-Jones 2012, 2013), this has prompted recourse to a frame of hybrid neoliberalism and readings of neoliberal governmentality to understand the otherwise apparently contradictory moves of the State and the new subjectivities nurtured amongst governed populations.…”