Payments for environmental services and rural livelihood strategies in Ecuador and Guatemala

Southgate, Douglas; Haab, Timothy C.; Lundine, John; Rodríguez, F.

doi:10.1017/s1355770x09005361

Cited by 22 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Field experiments in Ecuador and Guatemala show that differentiating payments to smallholders might reduce the costs of implementing payment schemes, but as the poorest households engaged in subsistence farming are likely to receive lower payments than farmers with larger land holdings, such payments might increase rather than reduce income inequality [54]. An analysis of implementing an avoided deforestation program in the Brazilian Amazon reveals that institutional preconditions, such as land grabbing, insecure tenure and overlapping claims, would ensure that large landowners who are responsible for around 80% of deforestation would receive the greatest benefits from the scheme, whereas communities in forest commons could be excluded [55].…”

Section: Effectiveness Efficiency and Equitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can REDD+ Save the Forest? The Role of Payments and Tenure

Barbier

Tesfaw

2012

Forests

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Abstract:A recent policy response to halting global forest deforestation and degradation, and any resulting greenhouse gas emissions is REDD+, which also includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. Although still in its infancy, the success of REDD+ will depend significantly on whether it can be economically viable and if any resulting payments are sufficient to cover the opportunity cost plus any transaction cost. Where tenure security over forest is weak, REDD+ can pose a risk for forest communities, who could be dispossessed, excluded and marginalized. This review of existing studies explores how payment for avoided deforestation, and forest tenure impact the success of REDD+ projects in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and equity. Effectiveness refers to the difference between deforestation with and without REDD+, efficiency refers to avoiding deforestation at minimal cost, and equity refers to the implication of REDD+ on benefit sharing. We conclude that the potential success or failure of REDD+ as a means to reduce deforestation and carbon emission on forest commons depends critically on designing projects that work within existing informal tenure institutions to ensure that carbon storage benefits align with livelihood benefits.

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Section: Effectiveness Efficiency and Equitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can REDD+ Save the Forest? The Role of Payments and Tenure

Barbier

Tesfaw

2012

Forests

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“…One example of a method used to clarify opportunity costs can be found in Indonesia (Jack et al 2009), where a PES program on mitigation of soil erosion from coffee plantations used an auction-based approach to reveal private information on the price of the PES; however, whether this approach is really adequate requires further research. For example, compared with the maximum result provided by an auction, some contingent valuation analyses undertaken in Ecuador and Guatemala on potential PES have found that the minimum compensation demanded by rural households was far from uniform (Southgate et al 2010). The opportunity costs depended in particular on individual strategies for raising incomes and dealing with local risks (Southgate et al 2010).…”

Section: Inappropriate Claims For Potential Damagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, compared with the maximum result provided by an auction, some contingent valuation analyses undertaken in Ecuador and Guatemala on potential PES have found that the minimum compensation demanded by rural households was far from uniform (Southgate et al 2010). The opportunity costs depended in particular on individual strategies for raising incomes and dealing with local risks (Southgate et al 2010). …”

Section: Inappropriate Claims For Potential Damagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Polluter Pays to Provider Gets: Distribution of Rights and Costs under Payments for Ecosystem Services

Mauerhofer¹,

Hubacek²,

Coleby³

2013

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Should society have the right to freely available clean air and water, or should people be required to pay for these as commodities just as they do for many other goods or services that they consume? With this question and further questions on environmental governance in mind, we reviewed the paradigm shift in natural resource management from the polluter pays principle (PPP), which focuses on polluters and enforcement of thresholds, to the principle of payments for ecosystem services (PES), which emphasizes provider-based economic approaches. Given that there are conflicts of interest over natural resources and ecosystem services (ESs), these conflicts could be resolved through rights and/or cost assignments via third-party intervention, i.e., by the "state," or through private compensation beyond initial regulation and state-initiated assignments of cost. Our analysis includes an in-depth literature review and a description of existing policies on ESs. We also examine the so-called Coase theorem based on a "neutral" situation where no rights or costs are distributed in advance. This theorem provides room for the PPP approaches and the provider-gets approaches. Both of these approaches should ensure, given certain assumptions, an economically efficient allocation of resources; however, they still ignore two indispensable issues, namely, the ecologically sustainable scale and inherent qualities of ecosystems and the distributional effects. With regard to the relationship between these two sets of approaches and their respective relationship to the legal framework, PES programs can evolve instead of PPP where no regulations are in place, existing regulations are deemed to be insufficiently formulated, or regulations are not enforced at all. We also further address some critical issues that can arise when PES programs evolve instead of PPP in practice, such as the general necessity of PES to coexist with basic rights and legal obligations, inappropriate lexicographic claims from providers of ESs, alongside claims for potential damages and the relationship of PES with the intrinsic motivation of service providers. Critically, insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that by replacing the earlier PPP doctrine with the "provider-gets" principle, rights are redistributed from the public to the service provider with important distributional implications for society. Therefore, the replacement of PPP with PES includes obstacles as well as opportunities, in particular for the relationship between rich and poor, and developing and developed countries.

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“…Our study contributes to support policy decisions by incorporating the underlying differences in preferences and values between collective and individual actions to implement PWES programs thatallow conservation payments to vary among ecosystem service providers. These findings are supported by Southgate et al (2010)who strengthen conservation payments to vary among recipients. This would imply a departure from the current norm in developing PES schemes with a uniform compensation.…”

Section: Estimation Of Willingness To Acceptmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…Consequently, PES schemes can be considered as a development program that has a sustainable livelihood concern to improve welfare of the people and conserve natural resources. PES enables to maintain the trade-off between livelihoods strategies and conservation efforts (Bulte et al 2008, Southgate et al 2010). …”

Section: Livelihood: Concept and Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking the economy to the ecosystems: land use change and ecosystem services valuation at basin level

Mulatu¹

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Payments for environmental services and rural livelihood strategies in Ecuador and Guatemala

Cited by 22 publications

References 16 publications

Can REDD+ Save the Forest? The Role of Payments and Tenure

Can REDD+ Save the Forest? The Role of Payments and Tenure

From Polluter Pays to Provider Gets: Distribution of Rights and Costs under Payments for Ecosystem Services

Linking the economy to the ecosystems: land use change and ecosystem services valuation at basin level

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