Reconciling Poverty Eradication and Protection of the Environment

2003

In this paper we consider different strategies for implementing a payment for environmental services (PES) program to mitigate deforestation in Mexican common property forests (ejidos). We begin by discussing the policy context within which PES programs find themselves, highlighting other possible interventions to help preserve environmental amenities in Mexico. We then discuss some basic principles of environmental payment schemes, formalizing these into three that we simulate: payment of the opportunity cost for forests at risks; payment for environmental benefits provided by forests at risk; a flat payment scheme with a cap on allowable hectares, similar to the type of program often applied in developing countries; and a program of opportunity cost payments for forest at risk with highest environmental benefit per dollar paid. We find that, of these three, the last is most efficient and the second most egalitarian. We also repeat a simulation of the third scheme using predicted, rather than actual risk, which circumvents the problem of strategic behavior on the part of recipient communities but introduces some error into the targeting process. Finally, we consider the characteristics of communities that receive payments from the most efficient program, finding that larger and more remote ejidos receive the lion's share of the budget, but that payments to them are not necessarily more efficient. This scheme also gives more, though smaller on a per capita basis, payments to poor and indigenous communities, where they are more efficient than those to non-poor and non-indigenous ejidos.

Environmental Science & Policy, 2011

SUMMARY Conservation policies have often been designed and implemented assuming that targeted communities are socially and politically homogeneous. Payment for environmental services (PES) programmes have often overlooked intra-community differences, which affect the understanding of implementation requirements and access to benefits, thus underestimating their effects on the programme's legitimacy and impacts. We explore how the views of local communities about the socio-environmental performance and dynamics of Mexico's PES differ within forest communities, considering two groups: local community authorities and the remaining beneficiaries in two different PES programmes. Informed by a nationwide survey, we constructed 35 indicators and found significant differences between these groups for 10 indicators. Local community authorities concentrated knowledge and information, relations with outside actors and control over benefit distribution. We found that community authorities and beneficiaries diverged in their views about the extent to which PES knowledge is shared across community members, how related implementation decisions are pursued and the fairness of benefit distribution, which we argue suggests this is a form of 'elite capture' favoured by PES design and implementation. Efforts should be invested in ensuring that PES programme benefits are equitably distributed in order to avoid widening pre-existing social and political asymmetries.

2015

for Environmental Services (PES) Programs in Latin America and Mexico have dominated the market-based environmental policy realm in the past decade due to their new paradigm for solving the problem for ecosystem degradation. There are at least three reasons why a careful examination of the design and implementation of these types of programs is important for the environmental policy discussion in developing world contexts. First and foremost, PES schemes offer several advantages: they are cost-effective, they are institutionally simpler, and they are potentially good for poverty reduction. Second, PES schemes embrace the user-based principle instead of the polluter-pays principle and, in some cases, they have elements of a conditional cash transfer program. Third, from a geographical perspective, PES programs are lexible and adaptive to local, regional, national and international scales. Despite the advantages from a policy design perspective, PES programs present a set of issues an...

Ecological Economics, 2009

This article proposes a multi-dimensional framework for understanding the development and effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, framed around the notions of institutional design, performance and interplay. The framework is applied in the context of Mexico's Programme of Payments for Carbon, Biodiversity and Agro-forestry Services (PSA-CABSA), with an emphasis on its carbon component. The analysis shows that PSA-CABSA was promoted by civil society and its rules have been subject to continuous modifications over time. In the case of the carbon component, changes have been due to an original misunderstanding of how carbon projects should be designed, implemented, and carbon traded in actual markets. From a performance point of view, the paper shows that the programme has been well received by rural communities, and carbon payments have contributed to increase household income and to enhance forest management practices and organisational skills. The paper also highlights sources of institutional interplay with local institutions and international climate policy, and it reveals the importance of capacity and scale issues in securing an effective and fair implementation of PES. The conclusion provides some policy recommendations for the future development of PES initiatives in Mexico and elsewhere.

2005

2009

The tropical forests of South America, some of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, also hold the greatest biodiversity. Besides providing important habitat, healthy forests capture carbon dioxide and prevent its release into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the potential release of stored carbon through deforestation also poses an incredible threat to the earth’s stability. These complex ecosystems are under pressure from local populations who exploit their natural resources for survival. Compounding this problem, climate change threatens to significantly alter existing habitats and subsequently, the biodiversity those habitats support. Around the world, development practitioners and communities are looking for solutions that reconcile the needs of rural farming communities with the preservation of tropical forests. Payments for Environmental Services (PES) projects are one potential solution to this problem. These projects are designed to generate income for traditional farmers through alternative land use, while simultaneously protecting and regenerating the degraded forest. This paper examines a PES alternative being developed by Iracambi, a non-governmental organization working in the Serra do Brigadeiro Development Territory in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. If stakeholders are able to overcome some considerable obstacles, this type of project could have a significant positive impact on this region and in similar regions throughout the world.

Environment and Development Economics, 2008

2015

The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) was set up in 2008 to meet growing demand for more and better evidence of what development interventions in low-and middleincome countries work and why. By funding rigorous impact evaluations and systematic reviews and by making evidence accessible and useful to policymakers and practitioners, 3ie is helping to improve the lives of people living in poverty. 3ie Impact Evaluations 3ie-supported impact evaluations assess the difference a development intervention has made to social and economic outcomes. 3ie is committed to funding rigorous evaluations that include a theory-based design, use the most appropriate mix of methods to capture outcomes and are useful in complex development contexts. 3ie accepted the final version of this report, Environmental and socioeconomic impacts of Mexico's payments for ecosystem services programme, as partial fulfilment of requirements under grant OW2.031 issued under Open Window 2. The content has been copyedited and formatted for publication by 3ie. Due to unavoidable constraints at the time of publication, a few of the tables or figures may be less than optimal. All of the content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not represent the opinions of 3ie, its donors or its Board of Commissioners. Any errors and omissions are also the sole responsibility of the authors.

Peace and Progress: The United Nations University Graduate Student Journal, 2014

In 2008, the national government of Ecuador introduced the Programa Socio Bosque (Forest Partner Programme). Under the programme, direct payments to forest inhabitants incentivized the conservation of global and national scale ecosystem benefits threatened by Amazon deforestation, with a particular focus on maintaining global climate regulation and biological diversity. Uptake of past programs and compliance with regulation was historically complicated by a lack of legitimacy amongst communities targeted by these policies. A voluntary program now with over 90,000 beneficiaries, Socio Bosque has instead directly fostered local participation in the investment of payments and monitoring of compliance. However, complementary returns for from carbon markets have been less than expected and the consistency of government payments are at risk from Ecuador’s turbulent politic climate. This paper discusses the capacity of payment-based programmes to drive long-term, sustained change in environmental management values beyond simply meeting the opportunity costs of avoid deforestation and short political life-cycles. Similar programmes can learn from Socio Bosque’s vulnerabilities and strengths to highlight livelihood co-benefits of conserving forest ecosystem benefits while meeting immediate needs through incentives, such as tying payments to long-term livelihood investments and community compliance monitoring.