Consequences of Environmental Service Payments for Forest Retention and Recruitment in a Costa Rican Biological Corridor (original) (raw)
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Rethinking Forest Resource Use Contracts in Latin America
IDB Publications, 1999
This study challenges the current design of forest resource use contracts in Latin America. Radical rethinking of forest resource contracts is imperative, due to the constraints that now face the successful achievement of forest policy objectives of economic development and conservation of forest resources. The constraints identified in this study include: C Financial incentives that favor selective logging rather than management in tropical forests; C Lack of a technical basis for silviculture in neo-tropical forests; C Governments that lack the administrative capacity and political will to impose management; and C Cultural and social norms that fail to recognize local users of forest resources. Forestry is generally looked upon as an important activity in rural development. If conducted in a "sustainable" manner, it is widely embraced as a means to maintain forest cover and thereby provide various environmental services such as biodiversity conservation, watershed protection, carbon sequestration, soil conservation, and habitat preservation. Given the constraints outlined in this study, it seems unlikely that the dual objectives of economic development and conservation will be achieved via current models for forest resource use contracts. Examples of the current constraints and future opportunities for improving forest resource contract practices are illustrated in five case studies: Peru: Current proposals for the privatization of public forests present some innovative approaches to resolving the current administrative and regulatory problems faced by the forest sector. Bolivia: The Bosque Chimanes case study illustrates that extensive forest management can be both efficient and of relatively low impact without regulatory oversight. Past efforts to mandate "sustainable" management through regulatory force have failed in Chimanes due to financial, silvicultural, and administrative constraints. Colombia: An industry/community collaborative effort at intensive forest management provides an example of resolving the issues of multiple-use and local user rights that plague many forest resource use contracts in Latin America. Brazil: The creation and development of extractive reserves offers insight into the viability of non-timber forest products as economic alternatives to timber production. Chile: In an effort to reduce the burden on State agencies and improve forest management, the government is experimenting with the transfer of forest concessions to private enterprises for eco-tourism development. To rethink the current models for forest resource use contracts requires a clear definition of objectives. Current definitions of "sustainable forestry" are inadequate for measuring success. Forest Resource Use Contracts in Latin America This chapter introduces the fundamental concepts of forest resource use contracts for public forests, defines such contracts and reviews their legal basis. Forest use contracts have two principal objectives: economic development and the conservation of forest resources. Designing forest use contracts to achieve those objectives is the subject of subsequent chapters. Description of Contracts in Government Lands In general, a forest utilization contract gives a non-public entity the right to harvest and/or manage given resources under general conditions related to maintaining the health and productive potential of the forest. It also defines the payment for using those resources. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO 1977) defines a forest utilization contract for woods as follows: ...formal permission of the government or a public agency, which entitles an individual, a private company or a public or semi-public corporation, under clearly defined conditions, to the exclusive rights to explore the forest potential, to harvest wood, and/or to manage a specified area of public forest land. Such a contract combines public ownership of land with private or semi-private utilization of the raw material thereon. This kind of arrangement may lead to a partial or complete integration of the production process of forestry and the industrial utilization of wood without affecting the ownership of the land. This definition could be broadened to include non-timber forest resource uses as well. Under these terms, the grantor of the utilization contract is responsible for enforcing forest policies. These can include regulating any management requirements, legally protecting the contractee from encroachment on the granted forest land and/or from poaching the resources under contract, and, in some cases, installing and maintaining the necessary infrastructure (such as public roads) used to transport the products extracted from the forest. Forest utilization contracts are based on the legal status of the property. In much of Latin America, forested land is the property of the government and is generally composed of two types of legal property: the forest itself and the land on which it grows. In those countries where the forest does not have a separate legal identity from the land, extracted forest resources may be defined separately. The property regime, therefore, affects directly the type and scope of a utilization contract for forest resources. The property rights for land and natural resources comprise a legal property relation that is enforceable by the state. Such rights define the specific set of uses for the land and its resources to which the property holder is entitled. In much of Latin America, the government holds the formal property rights over forest resources, although local populations often exercise customary property rights over those same resources. In such cases, any contractual use of shared forest resources must consider how the rights of customary users may be affected by contracts between the government and other private entities. Forest utilization contracts differ in their length in time, the size of forest area to be exploited, and the required forest management practices. Generally speaking, the larger an area under contract, the longer the contract period and the greater the management requirements. The terms and conditions of contracts in Latin America vary greatly from one situation to another (see Appendix A). 2 A contract may be between the government and a private firm, a community, a corporation of private entities, or other groups. There are several elements to be considered in a forest use contract. C The contract may cover a variety of natural resources, each with its own management utilization and characteristics. C The objectives of the state may vary according to social, environmental, economic, geographical or other factors. C The profits from the resource utilization may be shared between the government and the contractee through the use of one or more revenue systems. C A government may choose to privatize public forest resources to reduce its administrative burden or to increase the efficiency of resource allocation and use. Forest Revenue Systems Forest revenue systems are designed to capture the funds generated by the use of public forest resources. These funds are then redistributed through public agencies and may be used for forest regulation and management. The following list of taxes and fees includes the most commonly used ones in the forestry sector of many developing countries. License fees: this fee is determined administratively and is generally paid as a fixed fee prior to issuing a license for use. The license fee is very easy to administer and offers little opportunity for evasion. Area taxes: area taxes are similar to license fees but are generally paid on an annual basis and are proportional to the area of land under contract. This fee is administratively simple, with little opportunity for evasion. Standing timber volume taxes: this tax is based on an inventory of the commercial trees in the area under contract and requires an extensive appraisal of the forest resources if it is to be properly applied. Per-tree harvest charges: per-tree charges are paid prior to harvest and are generally set as a uniform charge that is undifferentiated by species fails to reflect stumpage value. Volume charges on extracted timber and non-timber products: a charge applied after scaling and grading extracted timber. These charges are administratively more demanding but, if properly implemented, can more accurately reflect the value of the resources extracted than the taxes discussed above. Charges for direct services: the most common charge for a direct service is a reforestation tax. Although such taxes should be based on the cost of reforestation services, they are more often based on production. If properly applied, a reforestation tax could fund large-scale nurseries that would supply various forest contractors with the seedlings and technical guidance needed for reforestation. In reality, however, reforestation is rarely implemented in the context of natural forest management in the humid tropics and applying a reforestation tax is generally viewed by loggers as an unnecessary burden. Charges based on profits: producers and non-extractive users can be charged on their profits, profit-based royalties are derived from the per-unit profitability of forest resource production and can be calculated from a business' profits. Using an income tax in developing countries as a basis for user charges has the disadvantage of having to rely on accurate record-keeping for auditing. Both systems can be used for
2016
Through the commodification of nature, the framing of the environment as a 'natural resource' or 'ecosystem service' has become increasingly prominent in international environmental governance. The economic capture approach is promoted by international organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB). This paper will inquire as to how forest protection is related to issues of social and ecological justice, exploring whether forest exploitation based on the top-down managerial model fosters an unequitable distribution of resources. Both top-down and community-based approaches to forest protection will be critically examined and a more inclusive ethical framework to forest protection will be offered. The findings of this examination indicate the need for a renewed focus on existing examples of good practice in addressing both social and ecological need, as well as the necessity to address the less comfortable problem of where compromise appears less possible. The conclusion argues for the need to consider ecological justice as an important aspect of more socially orientated environmental justice for forest protection.
Ecological Economics, 2006
This study examined the efficiency of programs supporting the conservation of forest resources and services through direct payments to land owners; or payments for environmental services (PES). The analysis is based on a sample of farms receiving and not receiving PES in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. Results indicate that payments have limited immediate effects on forest conservation in the region. Conservation impacts are indirect and realized with considerable lag because they are mostly achieved through land use decisions affecting non forest land cover. PES seem to accelerate the abandonment of agricultural land and, through this process, forest regrowth and gains in services. This would be a double gain (current plus future forest services) except that our results also suggest that, in the absence of payments, forest cover would probably be similar in PES and non PES farms and that forest regrowth would also take place, albeit at a slower rate. These findings have important policy implications. Specifically, they suggest that, locally, payments could be more effective if they are used for restoration purposes. In their current form, PES landholders have no long term obligation to let abandoned lands revert to forest. Payments for restoration would remove this uncertainty. Because of the lag in conservation outcomes, they may also be insufficient at larger geographic scales if there are other forest areas where the immediate risk of habitat and service loss is higher. In the short run, resources would be better used if invested in these higher risk areas. At a more general level, this study lends support to the growing expectation that project administrators improve their capacity to target payments where they are most needed and not simply where they are most wanted.
Forest Policy and the Environment: Changing Paradigms
Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, 1998
Les soucis environnementaux jouent maintenant un rôle significatif dans l'élaboration de politiques forestières. Dans cet article nous discutons deux approches prenant en considération les aspects environnementaux des politiques forestières. Une approche basée sur les sciences sociales qui cherchent à maximiser les bénéfices sociaux nets en incluant les soucis environnementaux dans le calcul économique et une approche plus "biocentrique" qui se base sur le "paradigme des perturbations naturelles." Nous examinons les forces et faiblesses potentielles de chacune de ces approches. Nous concluons qu'il est nécessaire de combiner ces deux approches si nous voulons intégrer avec succès le développement économique des terres forestières et les soucis environnementaux.
Deforestation Impacts of Environmental Services Payments: Costa Rica’s PSA Program 2000–2005
Costa Rica’s environmental services payments program (Pagos por Servicios Ambientales, or PSA) started in 1997 and was the true pioneer in this area. It is broadly cited and has led to numerous calls for emulating its approach in various ways. It has itself evolved over time, with acknowledged shifts in focus. To measure the impacts of changed implementation, following earlier work on the 1997–2000 payments (Sánchez-Azofeifa et al. 2007; Pfaff et al. 2007), we evaluated the impact of the PSA forest protection contracts during 2000 and 2005. We found that less than 1 in 100 (about 0.4 percent) of the parcels enrolled in the program would have been deforested annually without payments, i.e., due to the net impact of the land returns in agriculture versus in ecotourism, as well as the effects of other conservation policies. This low return on investment is, to first order, the same as was seen for 1997–2000. However, we found that shifts in implementation have eliminated the bias in PSA location toward places where PSA’s impact on deforestation was even lower than on average plots. Thus, we showed that the impact increased due to changes in how program parcels were chosen. However, significant potential gains can be realized by increased targeting of areas with some deforestation pressure, including with payments that differ over space.
Services in the Forests: How Can Conservation and Development Be Reconciled
Asia Pacific Journal of Multidisciplinary Research , 2014
This study attempted to examine how conservation and development can be reconciled and if there have been initiatives to demonstrate the ability to encourage forest conservation through market mechanisms involving direct involvement in forestation. The study was a qualitative study. The present study focused on the services in the forests, how conservation and development be reconciled. This study, based on in-depth interview, reveal that to be effective in the long-run, programs have to consider the needs and priorities of forest dwellers, which are indeed beyond market-based incentives; a win-win discourse combining forest conservation and poverty alleviation through appropriate provision may hide vested interests of developed communities. Finally, proving the workability of activities and their quantification for emissions credit will be critical for the launching of reducing emissions from forestation and degradation in the future climate agreement.