Is PES A Panacea To Poverty Reduction And Environmetal Resources Conservation? A Case of Oyo State Rural Poor Farming Households Farm Settlers Perspectives

This study examined the perspectives of poor farming household farm settlers on the necessity of Land ownership Rights (LOR) as a condition for the environmental resource conservation. Previous studies argued that without property rights the poor will not be willing to participate in the environmental resource conservation. In this regards, the study argues that a Credit-based Payment for Environmental Services (PES) has the potential to tackle rural poverty and agricultural land degradation simultaneously, without the poor having absolute ownership rights of the agricultural land. To this end a choice experiment is employed to design the multi-attributes of PES. Findings of this study revealed that PES is a viable mechanism for rural poverty reduction and agricultural land conservation. The study discovers that tenancy security of the land for the occupants is sufficient to attract the poor to participate in land conservation programs, and not the absolute land ownership rights as argued by previous literature.