Payments for environmental services and contested neoliberalisation in developing countries: A case study from Vietnam

McElwee, Pamela; Tuyen, Nghiem Phuong; Le, Hue; Vu, Ho; Tran, Nghi H.

doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.08.003

Cited by 104 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 176 publications

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“…Consequently, the PES project diverged to become instead a collective action arrangement in which the traditional unpaid voluntary 'work days', coordinated by local leaders of water user associations, replaced 'payments' for water-resource management. Similar cases that examine the grounded and intimate ways in which local actors imbue the intent and motives of these initiatives with their own meanings, sociocultural institutions and value systems have been documented with indigenousled forest-based carbon offsetting in Mexico (Osborne and ShapiroGarza, 2017), REDD + in Cambodia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines (Mahanty et al, 2012), small-scale PES programs in peasant communities in Nicaragua (Van Hecken and Bastiaensen, 2010;Van Hecken et al, 2017), and in fishery communities in Japan (Ishihara et al, 2017), the national forest PES program of Vietnam (McElwee, 2012;McElwee et al, 2014), and the national PES program of Mexico (Shapiro-Garza, 2013a).…”

Section: Evidence Of the Monster? Empirical Examples Of The Contestatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A national law on PES was adopted by Vietnam in 2009, which, on the surface appears to follow the neoliberal conceit, in that households are paid to protect 'environmental services' accruing downstream to hydropower companies. However, in reality the program is built upon Vietnam's long history of state involvement; from the state-owned electricity monopoly to the state forest service, which co-administer the PES payments (McElwee, 2012;McElwee et al, 2014). The importance is not that the state is involved per se, but that households perceive PES payments as supplemental income, claiming that such payments are a government responsibility and a welcome return to a pre-neoliberal era of state subsidies.…”

Section: Evidence Of the Monster? Empirical Examples Of The Contestatmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher's ‘PES Conceit’

Hecken

Kolinjivadi

Windey

et al. 2018

Ecological Economics

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A B S T R A C TIn this commentary we respond to Fletcher and Büscher's (2017) recent article in this journal on Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) as neoliberal 'conceit'. The authors claim that focusing attention on the micro-politics of PES design and implementation fails to expose an underlying neoliberal governmentality, and therefore only reinforces neoliberal capitalism as both the problem and solution of ecological crises. In response, we argue that a focus on the actions of local actors is key to understanding how and why such governmentality fails or succeeds in performing as theorized. Grand generalizations fixated on a particular hegemonic and neoliberal PES ontology overlook how actors intertwine theory and practice in ways which cannot be explained by a dominant structural theory. Such generalizations risk obscuring the complexity and situational history, practice and scale of the processes involved. Rather than relegating variegated and hybrid forms of what actually emerges from PES interventions as neoliberal conceit, we argue that an actor-oriented, 'weak theory' approach permits PES praxis to inform knowledge generation. This would open up a more inclusive and politically engaging space for thinking about and realizing political change.

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Section: Evidence Of the Monster? Empirical Examples Of The Contestatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Evidence Of the Monster? Empirical Examples Of The Contestatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher's ‘PES Conceit’

Hecken

Kolinjivadi

Windey

et al. 2018

Ecological Economics

Self Cite

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“…The proportion of involved land has little direct influence on decision-making, probably because the income decrease from the paddy land transformed to dry land is in a limited proportion of total household income. Although scholars considered that the improvement of the environment benefited locals and, therefore, could contribute to farmers' participation [37,46], in our survey, the farmer's unclear perceptions of the water environment suggested that perception of the environment did not act significantly in the decision process of whether to participate.…”

Section: Influencing Factors Of Decision-making In Two Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…In comparison, the last man and nature subgroup distinguishes the impacts of water environment of both quantity and quality. That PES programs may improve the ecological environment and benefit locals in the long run could enable local participation [37]; thus the respondents' perceptions of the water environment on different temporal and spatial scales have been considered; Finally, the participation decisions group investigates decisions of voluntary participation under ongoing payment or termination of the PLDL program. In addition, it considers whether respondents were satisfied with the present payment or supported the PLDL program.…”

Section: Evaluation Framework Of Participation Willingnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of Non-economic Influencing Factors Affecting Farmer’s Participation in the Paddy Landto-Dry Land Program in Chicheng County, China

Yuan

Liu

et al. 2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:There is global enthusiasm for payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs to solve environmental problems, including in China. However, PES programs in China go against the principle of 'voluntary transaction', which weakens the influences of economic factors on farmers' participation decisions and makes it hard to reveal their influence on farmers' participation willingness. Using household survey data and a logistic regression model, this study attempts to understand the influencing factors of farmers' decision-making on involvement in PES projects for hypothetical voluntary participation and focuses on whether the farmer would reject the program if the payment stopped. A surprising but promising result is found in the case of the Paddy Land-to-Dry Land (PLDL) program in Chicheng County, China, wherein, apart from the negative impact of education and the positive effect of off-farm income, two non-economic factors play a significant role in farmers' participation. The one is basic cognition, which negatively affects farmers' participation, and the other is inner altruistic motivation, which positively contributes to the participation. In addition, the high proportion of reconversion to paddy land after the payment period threatens the long-term sustainability of the PLDL program. Faced with the low education and environmental cognition statuses in remote agricultural areas, increasing educational quality and promoting the popular awareness of PES programs in rural areas should be highlighted in sustaining the efficiency and effectiveness of PES programs in the long run.

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“…In other cases, PES can create scope for negotiating existing practices resulting from the established power relations [26,[125][126][127] and can induce changes in landowners' perceptions, norms, and values about "good," "accepted," and "desirable" practices to nature conservation [28]. The fact that interactions among agents, including the levels of trust and community organization influence the outcomes of the schemes [43], recently spurred research on the role of social capital in PES [43,[128][129][130][131][132][133].…”

Section: Behavioral Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Payments for Ecosystem Services—the Case of Forests

Prokofieva

2016

Curr Forestry Rep

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Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is a trending topic in environmental resource management. The literature on PES has been growing almost exponentially, and practical applications of PES schemes are mushrooming all around the world. In this review article, I present the existing definitions of PES, the factors to consider during the design and implementation stages of PES programs, as well as discuss the recent theoretical debates related to PES in the literature-specifically those related to commodification and legitimacy of PES, its behavioral implications as well as the issues of power and equity. Despite a wealth of accumulated knowledge in the theoretical and experimental fields related to PES, there is still a considerable lack of empirical studies assessing the practical implementation of PES in the field. Only a few schemes are actually systematically assessed, and there is still a lack of a unified comprehensive framework for the thorough evaluation of existing practical experiences. I outline some of the future research challenges that need to be tackled in order to gain a better understanding of the opportunities that the PES mechanism offers to environmental policy makers and other interested stakeholders.

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Payments for environmental services and contested neoliberalisation in developing countries: A case study from Vietnam

Cited by 104 publications

References 176 publications

Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher's ‘PES Conceit’

Silencing Agency in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Essentializing a Neoliberal ‘Monster’ Into Being: A Response to Fletcher & Büscher's ‘PES Conceit’

Identification of Non-economic Influencing Factors Affecting Farmer’s Participation in the Paddy Landto-Dry Land Program in Chicheng County, China

Payments for Ecosystem Services—the Case of Forests

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