PES, markets and property rights: a comment on Wunder's revisited concept of PES and a proposal of conceptual framework

Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are often described as market-based instruments as they are used to change relative prices, and therefore to provide incentives. Following the line of thought of institutional economists, we argue that a market is a place for the transfer of property rights (the right to perform certain actions), beyond the goods and services which are exchanged. We underline the need for aclear distinction between " ecosystem services " (services obtained by peoplefromnature) and " environmental services " (services rendered by people to other people). Against Wunder's (2015) interpretation, we explain why ecosystem services are, by nature, collective or public goods, and as such do not lend themselves to appropriation.We argue also that appropriation is a precondition of exchanges, even in a service economy, unless admitting that there are markets without exchange. In PES there is no transfer of property rights: the holders simply freeze or use their ownland development rights. PES embedded into REDD+ projects, which are " backedagainst the carbon market " , and PES in which service's providres are selected through auctions: these PES can be analysed as " hybrids " combining a market-based procedure and bilateral agreements about setting environmental easements.