IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aub/uhewps/2006_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Payments for Environmental Services in Watersheds: Insights From a Comparative Study of three Cases in Central America

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolas Kosoy

    (Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

  • Miguel Martinez-Tuna

    (Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

  • Roldan Muradian

    (Development Research Institute, Tilburg University)

  • Joan Martinez-Alier

    (Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Abstract

We have compared three cases of payments for water-related environmental services (PES) in Central America, in terms of socioeconomic background, opportunity costs of forest conservation and stakeholders’ perceptions on the conditions of water resources and other issues. We found that, in general, the foregone benefits from land uses alternative to forest cover are larger than the amount paid, which apparently contradicts the economic foundation of PES schemes. A number of possible explanations are explored. The results also suggest that trade-offs between different environmental and social goals are likely to emerge in PES schemes, posing some doubts on their ability to be multipurpose instruments for environmental improvement and rural development. We also found that PES schemes may work as a conflictresolution instrument, facilitating downstream -upstream problem solving, though at the same time they might introduce changes in social perceptions of property rights.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Kosoy & Miguel Martinez-Tuna & Roldan Muradian & Joan Martinez-Alier, "undated". "Payments for Environmental Services in Watersheds: Insights From a Comparative Study of three Cases in Central America," UHE Working papers 2006_01, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Departament d'Economia i Història Econòmica, Unitat d'Història Econòmica.
    • Handle: RePEc:aub:uhewps:2006_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/estudis/2006/hdl_2072_4200/UHE1-2006.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kerr, John, 2002. "Watershed Development, Environmental Services, and Poverty Alleviation in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(8), pages 1387-1400, August.
    2. Grieg-Gran, Maryanne & Porras, Ina & Wunder, Sven, 2005. "How can market mechanisms for forest environmental services help the poor? Preliminary lessons from Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1511-1527, September.
    3. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    4. Paul Seabright, 1993. "Managing Local Commons: Theoretical Issues in Incentive Design," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 113-134, Fall.
    5. Stefano Pagiola & Paola Agostini & José Gobbi & Cees de Haan & Muhammad Ibrahim, 2004. "Paying for Biodiversity Conservation Services in Agricultural Landscapes," Others 0405005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Leopoldo Dimas & Susan Kandel & Deborah Barry & Herman Rosa, 2004. "Compensation for Environmental Services and Rural Communities: Lessons from the Americas," Working Papers wp96, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    7. Johnson, Nancy L. & Baltodano, Maria Eugenia, 2004. "The economics of community watershed management: some evidence from Nicaragua," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 57-71, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kosoy, Nicolas & Martinez-Tuna, Miguel & Muradian, Roldan & Martinez-Alier, Joan, 2007. "Payments for environmental services in watersheds: Insights from a comparative study of three cases in Central America," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 446-455, March.
    2. Pagiola, Stefano & Rios, Ana R. & Arcenas, Agustin, 2008. "Can the poor participate in payments for environmental services? Lessons from the Silvopastoral Project in Nicaragua," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 299-325, June.
    3. Driss Ezzine-de-Blas & Sven Wunder & Manuel Ruiz-Pérez & Rocio del Pilar Moreno-Sanchez, 2016. "Global Patterns in the Implementation of Payments for Environmental Services," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Wang, Pu & Poe, Gregory L. & Wolf, Steven A., 2017. "Payments for Ecosystem Services and Wealth Distribution," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 63-68.
    5. Jespersen, Kristjan & Gallemore, Caleb, 2018. "The Institutional Work of Payments for Ecosystem Services: Why the Mundane Should Matter," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 507-519.
    6. Stefano Pagiola & Ana Rios & Agustin Arcenas, 2010. "Poor Household Participation in Payments for Environmental Services: Lessons from the Silvopastoral Project in Quindío, Colombia," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 47(3), pages 371-394, November.
    7. Pagiola, Stefano & Arcenas, Agustin & Platais, Gunars, 2005. "Can Payments for Environmental Services Help Reduce Poverty? An Exploration of the Issues and the Evidence to Date from Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 237-253, February.
    8. Engel, Stefanie & Pagiola, Stefano & Wunder, Sven, 2008. "Designing payments for environmental services in theory and practice: An overview of the issues," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 663-674, May.
    9. Pranab Mukhopadhyay, "undated". "Heterogeneity, Commons and Privitization: Agrarian Institutional Change in Goa," Working papers 22, The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics.
    10. Bremer, Leah L. & Farley, Kathleen A. & Lopez-Carr, David & Romero, José, 2014. "Conservation and livelihood outcomes of payment for ecosystem services in the Ecuadorian Andes: What is the potential for ‘win–win’?," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 148-165.
    11. Norgaard, Richard B., 2010. "Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1219-1227, April.
    12. Kisaka, Lily & Obi, Ajuruchukwu, 2015. "Farmers’ Preferences for Management Options as Payment for Environmental Services Scheme," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 18(3), pages 1-22, September.
    13. Damien S. Eldridge, 2009. "Multiple Interactions and the Management of Local Commons," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(270), pages 344-349, September.
    14. Pirard, Romain, 2012. "Payments for Environmental Services (PES) in the public policy landscape: “Mandatory” spices in the Indonesian recipe," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 23-29.
    15. Nicolas Faysse, 2005. "Coping with the Tragedy of the Commons: Game Structure and Design of Rules," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 239-261, April.
    16. Van Hecken, Gert & Bastiaensen, Johan & Vásquez, William F., 2012. "The viability of local payments for watershed services: Empirical evidence from Matiguás, Nicaragua," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 169-176.
    17. Tschakert, Petra, 2007. "Environmental services and poverty reduction: Options for smallholders in the Sahel," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 75-86, April.
    18. Nicolas Faysse, 2005. "Coping With The Tragedy Of The Commons: Game Structure And Design Of Rules," Post-Print cirad-01002167, HAL.
    19. Ola, Oreoluwa & Menapace, Luisa & Benjamin, Emmanuel & Lang, Hannes, 2019. "Determinants of the environmental conservation and poverty alleviation objectives of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 52-66.
    20. Dasgupta, Partha, 2010. "The Place of Nature in Economic Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4977-5046, Elsevier.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aub:uhewps:2006_01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jesus Ramos-Martin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/heuabes.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.