Governance of Payments for Ecosystem Ecosystem services influences social and environmental outcomes in Costa Rica (original) (raw)
Related papers
Costa Rica's payment for environmental services program: intention, implementation, and impact
Conservation …, 2007
We evaluated the intention, implementation, and impact of Costa Rica's program of payments for environmental services (PSA), which was established in the late 1990s. Payments are given to private landowners who own land in forest areas in recognition of the ecosystem services their land provides. To characterize the distribution of PSA in Costa Rica, we combined remote sensing with geographic information system databases and then used econometrics to explore the impacts of payments on deforestation. Payments were distributed broadly across ecological and socioeconomic gradients, but the 1997–2000 deforestation rate was not significantly lower in areas that received payments. Other successful Costa Rican conservation policies, including those prior to the PSA program, may explain the current reduction in deforestation rates. The PSA program is a major advance in the global institutionalization of ecosystem investments because few, if any, other countries have such a conservation history and because much can be learned from Costa Rica's experiences.
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.
Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente, 2015
Costa Rica’s Payment for Environmental Services Program–PESP was launched in 1997. It is a market-oriented policy instrument designed to stimulate forest conservation by making monetary payments to landowners who choose not to engage in deforestation or to engage in forest recovery or plantations on their properties. This article focuses on the basic concepts and on the early years of the program’s performance, using data published by the program’s management agency as well as data and analysis published in a limited number of the numerous texts that examine this pioneering experience in payments for environmental services. Findings show that in its early years (between 1997 and approximately 2003) the program managed to reverse a severe process of deforestation and even to expand the total area of forested lands in Costa Rica. It corrected market failures and created trade opportunities linked to the market of environmental services. It benefitted larger landowners in a more than proportional manner, a fact that precluded it from being simultaneously a poverty alleviation program. The conclusion is that the program, if targeted more precisely at small landowners, can serve as a model for comparable forest protection policies in developing countries, reducing deforestation rates, changing land uses and expanding forest cover, besides mitigating rural poverty.
Do Payments for Environmental Services Affect Forest Cover? A Farm-Level Evaluation from Costa Rica
Land Economics, 2012
Payments for environmental services (PES) are popular despite little empirical evidence of their effectiveness. We estimate the impact of PES on forest cover in a region known for exemplary implementation of one of the best-known and longest-lived PES programs. Our evaluation design combines sampling that incorporates prematching, data from remote sensing and household surveys, and empirical methods that include partial identification with weak assumptions, difference-in-differences matching estimators, and tests of sensitivity to unobservable heterogeneity. PES in our study site increased participating farm forest cover by about 11% to 17% of the mean area under PES contract over eight years. (JEL Q57, Q58)
Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services in Costa Rica
2014
Environmental Conservation 41 (1): 27-36 C Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2013. The online version of this article is published within an open access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence http:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use.
Payment for ecosystem services programs are being implemented in a wide variety of settings, but whether and in what contexts such programs present ‘win–win’ scenarios that simultaneously improve human well- being and achieve conservation goals remains poorly understood. Based on semi-structured interviews with early program participants enrolling either collectively- or individually-held land, we evaluated whether and how SocioPáramo, a national-scale PES program targeting Ecuadorian Andean grasslands (páramos), has the potential to contribute to local livelihoods (financial, natural, social, human, and physical capital) and sustain- able resource management. Low conservation opportunity costs associated with pre-existing constraints on land use and the existence of alternative livelihood options appeared to facilitate largely positive financial capital outcomes, although we found reduced financial capital among some smaller and medium-sized landholders who were required to eliminate burning and grazing. We found the greatest potential for improved social, financial, and natural capital among well-organized community participants enrolling collective land, while greater attention to building capacity of individual smaller landholders could improve outcomes for those participants. These results help fill a gap in knowledge by drawing on empirical data to demonstrate how divergent outcomes have begun to emerge among different groups of SocioPáramo participants, providing lessons for PES program design.