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Browsing by Author "Engel, Stefanie"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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  • Designing payments for environmental services in theory and practice: An overview of the issues
    Engel, Stefanie; Pagiola, Stefano; Wunder, Sven (Elsevier B.V., 2008)
    This article provides an introduction to the Special Issue of Ecological Economics on Payments for Environmental Services (PES). The definition and purpose of PES provides a foundation to discuss key factors in the design and implementation of PES schemes. The authors also compare PES to other policy instruments and assess the effectiveness and distributional impacts of PES schemes.
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    Payments for environmental services as an alternative to logging under weak property rights: The case of Indonesia
    Engel, Stefanie; Palmer, C. (2005)
    Decentralization reforms in Indonesia have led to local communities engaging in logging agreements with timber companies for relatively low financial payoffs and at high environmental costs. This paper analyzes the potential of payments for environmental services (PES) to provide an alternative to logging for these communities and to induce forest conservation. We apply a game-theoretical model of community-firm interactions that explicitly considers two stylized conditions present in the Indonesian context: (i) the fact that community rights to the forest remain weak even after decentralization, and (ii) the presence of logging companies interested in the commercial exploitation of the forest.
  • Payments for environmental services as an alternative to logging under weak property rights: The case of Indonesia
    Engel, Stefanie; Palmer, C. (Elsevier B.V., 2008)
    This paper assesses the potential for payments for environmental services (PES) to take the place of logging agreements that have a high environmental cost and low economic return for local communities. The analysis uses a game-theoretical model that considers both the weak forest rights of the community and the influence of timber companies desiring to exploit the forests. The authors discuss aspects of PES design that influence effectiveness - important factors for choosing which communities to target, complexities to consider, and the use of data and analysis to shape PES design. Although this analysis focuses on a particular Indonesian context, the results have implications for other regions that also have weak communal property rights and are influenced by external commercial interests. Additionally, this paper clearly shows necessity of understanding local context in effective PES program design.
  • Payments for environmental services in Costa Rica: Increasing efficiency through spatial differentiation
    Wünscher, Tobias; Engel, Stefanie; Wunder, Sven (Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin, 2006)
    Payments for Environmental Services (PES) have become a widely acknowledged and increasingly popular market based instrument to conserve forests and their environmental services. Costa Rica was the first developing country to have implemented a nationwide PES program. Besides legal and formal requirements which have to be met by any program applicant, the forest sites are selected from a pool of applications on the basis of predefined program areas. Sites inside these program areas qualify for participation, those outside do not, although exceptions are made. Assuming that more complex spatial differences do exist the efficiency of the PES program might be increased by considering a site's actual service delivery potential, deforestation risk and by making not fixed, but flexible payments according to the site's opportunity cost of forest conservation. Based on this data a selection mechanism is developed that maximizes additionality per dollar spent. Given a fixed budget results show that the selection mechanism increases the amount of contracted environmental services. Especially the use of flexible payment levels according to individual opportunity costs has a significantly positive impact on service delivery. Yet, as deforestation activities in Costa Rica are rare the use of deforestation probability estimates leads to little efficiency gain. It is also observed that the average area of the selected sites decreases which might indicate that the proposed selection mechanism encourages participation of the poor. For the implementation of flexible payments a PES program would need to estimate individual opportunity costs in a cost effective way. Three estimation approaches are tested and compared to the land owners´ expressed willingness to accept a PES contract. Results show that none of the approaches explain sufficiently the land owners´ decision behavior. If it is true that opportunity costs do not sufficiently explain decision behavior, then not opportunity cost estimation approaches are required for the implementation of flexible payments, but alternative approaches which determine payment levels taking all decision influencing factors into account. Inverse auction systems present such an alternative and should be given more attention.
  • Spatial targeting of payments for environmental services: A tool for boosting conservation benefits
    Wünscher, Tobias; Engel, Stefanie; Wunder, Sven (Elsevier B.V., 2008)
    This paper describes a site selection tool designed to improve the efficiency of Payments for environmental services (PES) mechanisms through spatial differentiation. The tool considers three variables: the environmental services of the area, risk of service loss, and costs of participation. An implemented PES scheme in the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica provides the empirical data for testing the tool's capacity to increase program efficiency.
  • Taking stock: A comparative analysis of payments for environmental services programs in developed and developing countries
    Wunder, Sven; Engel, Stefanie; Pagiola, Stefano (Elsevier B.V., 2008)
    This article analyzes characteristics of payments for environmental services (PES) programs in developing and developed countries, differentiating between the various factors creating such wide diversity. The most substantial differences were found between user- and government-funded programs. The paper concludes with suggestions for improving effectiveness and financial efficiency of all types of PES programs.