Browsing by Author "Pagiola, Stefano"

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  • Agricultural intensification, local labor markets, and deforestation in the Philippines
    Shively, Gerald E.; Pagiola, Stefano (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
    This paper examines agricultural intensification and its impact on deforestation in a frontier region of the Philippines. Panel data covering the period 1994-2000 are used to study labor demand and resource reallocation in response to lowland irrigation development. Results illustrate how irrigation has led to changes in employment, incomes, and activities at the forest margin. Findings indicate that the off-farm employment opportunities created by irrigation development have helped to reduce rates of forest clearing. Although some initial employment gains have been reversed, wage-induced increases in agricultural productivity in the uplands have reduced forest pressure. Results show that lowland irrigation has had direct, indirect, and lagged effects on rates of forest clearing, and that a virtuous cycle may be at play, with irrigation leading to both poverty reduction and reduced forest pressure.
  • Can payments for environmental services help reduce poverty? An exploration of the issues and the evidence to date in Latin America
    Pagiola, Stefano; Arcenas, A.; Platais, G. (Elsevier, 2005)
    This paper examines the main ways in which Payments for Environmental Services (PES) might affect poverty. PES may reduce poverty mainly by making payments to poor natural resource managers in upper watersheds. The extent of the impact depends on how many PES participants are in fact poor, on the poor's ability to participate, and on the amounts paid. Although PES programs are not designed for poverty reduction, there can be important synergies when program design is well thought out and local conditions are favorable. Possible adverse effects can occur where property rights are insecure or if PES programs encourage less labor-intensive practices.
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    Can programs of payments for environmental services help preserve wildlife?
    Pagiola, Stefano (2003)
    This presentation explains the concept of payments for environmental services (PES) and gives examples of already-implemented PES initiatives. Developing a PES project requires (1) understanding the science and economics involved, (2) developing a mechanism to capture the benefits, and (3) paying the service providers. Using water services as an illustration of this process, Pagiola presents myths and facts about the hydrological effects of forests and the factors involved in developing a successful program of payments for water services. He then addresses the question of how a PES mechanism may be applied to protecting endangered species, distinguishing between different threats to wildlife conservation that would or would not be effectively addressed by PES. It is important to understand the underlying science, such as charateristics of the threatened species, characteristics of access, and the economics of the species. Pagiola describes what a program of payment for wildlife conservation might look like, then explores the many limitations and challenges that remain.
  • 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.
  • Ensuring that the poor benefit from payments for environmental services
    Pagiola, Stefano; Arcenas, A.; Platais, G. (2003)
    Systems of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are being increasingly used to finance conservation in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, and elsewhere. A critical dimension of these systems concerns their impact on the poor. This paper reviews the main linkages that have been hypothesized to exist between PES systems and poverty, drawing on data from the main on-going and planned PES systems in Latin America, and particularly on those supported by the World Bank. The main poverty-reduction impact of PES is likely to come from payments made to often poor natural resource managers in upper watersheds. The extent to which this will occur depends on how many potential participants in PES programs are in fact poor, and on the amount of the payments. There are, however, also some potential threats. Dealing with many small, poor land users can impose high transaction costs, thus threatening to cut the poor off from participating in PES systems. Careful design of the system is needed to avoid this problem, as in Costa Rica's development of collective contracting mechanisms to reduce transaction costs. Where property rights are insecure, the poor who depend on forests and other natural ecosystems for their livelihood may be displaced as PES increases the value of those ecosystems. This seems to have been an issue in Colombia's Cauca Valley, for example. The landless poor may find themselves affected, either positively or negatively, by labor market and other changes induced by the establishment of PES systems (for example, they may be harmed if the conservation practices encouraged by PES systems are less labor intensive than the practices they replace). It is in many cases too early to provide conclusive answers to these questions. The paper focuses on clearly identifying several concrete research hypotheses to be studied in a two-year research program we are undertaking, and reviewing available evidence for any initial lessons.
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    Environmental services payments in Central America: Putting theory into practice
    Pagiola, Stefano (2004)
    This presentation introduces the concept of water services and the need for payments for environmental services (PES). Current World Bank projects (implemented or under development) that are using PES approaches are listed. Diagrams illustrate the process of developing a PES project, which requires (1) understanding the science and economics involved, (2) developing a mechanism to capture the benefits, and (3) paying the service providers. Several case studies of project development from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Venezuela provide examples of the steps in this process.
  • Introduction to PES from a development perspective
    Pagiola, Stefano (2007)
    This presentation discusses:
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    Lowland irrigation practices benefit upland farms
    SANREM CRSP (Blacksburg, VA: SANREM CRSP, OIRED, Virginia Tech, 2006)
    The recent expansion of lowland irrigation practices in the Philippines has highlighted the economic and environmental ties between lowland and upland farms. Increased lowland production is providing additional off-farm employment opportunities for upland households, resulting in improved upland land management and decreased upland erosion.
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    Market-ish instruments and other strange beasts: A personal wrap-up view
    Pagiola, Stefano (2005)
    This presentation provides a summary discussion of "market-ish" instruments for environmental service provision. Choice of an instrument should be based on the objectives and context of a program. Although the definition of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) includes the roles of both service users and service providers, attention is primarily given the service providers and not the users. A shift to service user-focused PES mechanisms ('supply-side PES') could make PES outcomes more cost-effective by basing payments on user WTP (willingness to pay). The presentation concludes with discussing when PES is potentially useful and issues involved in paying providers.
  • Paying for biodiversity conservation services in agricultural landscapes
    Pagiola, Stefano; Agostini, Paola; Gobbi, José; de Haan, Cees; Ibrahim, Muhammad; Murgueitio, Enrique; Ramírez, Elías; Rosales, Mauricio; Ruíz, Juan Pablo (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2004)
    Adoption of improved silvopastoral practices in degraded pasture areas is thought to provide valuable local and global environmental benefits, including biodiversity conservation. However, these practices are insufficiently attractive to individual land users for them to adopt them spontaneously, particularly due to their high initial costs. This paper describes the contract mechanism developed for the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project, which is being implemented with financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project is testing the use of the payment-for-service mechanism to encourage the adoption of silvopastoral practices in three countries of Central and South America: Columbia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. The project has created a mechanism that pays land users for the global environmental services they are generating, so that the additional income stream makes the proposed practices privately profitable. Designing the mechanism required addressing issues such as: (1) measuring the actual amount of environmental services being provided, so that appropriate payments can be made; (2) providing payments in a way that resulted in the desired change in land use; and (3) avoiding the creation of perverse incentives (for example, for land users to cut down existing trees so as to qualify for additional payments for tree planting). Two variants of the proposed payment mechanism are being tested, with participating land users assigned randomly to one or to the other. The project also includes extensive monitoring of the effectiveness of each mechanism in stimulating adoption of the proposed measures and of the resulting impact on environmental services and on household welfare. These features, together with the three-country approach, will provide in the coming years a very rich dataset for testing the use of contract mechanisms for biodiversity conservation.
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    Paying for the environmental services of protected areas: Involving the private sector
    Georgieva, K.; Pagiola, Stefano; Deeks, P. (2003)
    The environmental services provided by natural ecosystems are often taken for granted until they are lost. These services may include hydrological benefits, sedimentation reduction, disaster prevention, and biodiversity conservation. A new approach known as Payment for Environmental Services (PES) charges downstream users for the services they receive and uses the proceeds to finance upstream conservation. Private sector companies are among the most important users of environmental services, and need to play a large role in PES efforts.
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    Payments for Environmental Services
    Pagiola, Stefano; Platais, G. (The World Bank, 2002)
    Despite their value, environmental services are often lost as land users typically receive no compensation for the services their land generates for others and therefore have no economic reason to take these services into account in making decisions about land use. The payment for environmental services (PES) approach is an example of efforts to develop systems in which land users are paid for the environmental services they generate. The central principles of PES are that those who provide environmental services should be compensated for doing so and that those who receive the services should pay for their provision. Aspects concerning PES include: identifying environmental services; financing compensation for environmental services; developing effective compensation systems; and establishing the institutional framework.
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    Payments for Environmental Services in Costa Rica
    Pagiola, Stefano (2006)
    Costa Rica pioneered the use of the payments for environmental services (PES) approach in developing countries by establishing a formal, country-wide program of payments, the PSA program. The PSA program has worked hard to develop mechanisms to charge the users of environmental services for the services they receive. It has made substantial progress in charging water users, and more limited progress in charging biodiversity and carbon sequestration users. Because of the way it makes payments to service providers (using approaches largely inherited from earlier programs), however, the PSA program has considerable room for improvement in the efficiency with which it generates environmental services. With experience, many of these weaknesses are being gradually corrected as the PSA program evolves towards a much more targeted and differentiated program. An important lesson is the need to be flexible and to adapt to lessons learned and to changing circumstances.
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    Payments for Environmental Services in Costa Rica
    Pagiola, Stefano (2005)
    Costa Rica pioneered the use of the payments for environmental services (PES) approach in developing countries by establishing a formal, country-wide program of payments, the PSA program. The PSA program has worked hard to develop mechanisms to charge the users of environmental services for the services they receive. It has made substantial progress in charging water users, and more limited progress in charging biodiversity and carbon sequestration users. Because of the way it makes payments to service providers (using approaches largely inherited from earlier programs), however, the PSA program has considerable room for improvement in the efficiency with which it generates environmental services. With experience, many of these weaknesses are being gradually corrected as the PSA program evolves towards a much more targeted and differentiated program. An important lesson is the need to be flexible and to adapt to lessons learned and to changing circumstances.
  • Payments for environmental services in Costa Rica
    Pagiola, Stefano (Elsevier B.V., 2008)
    This article discusses Costa Rica's national payments for environmental services (PES) program (the PSA program).The program design is described and strengths, weaknesses, and areas of progress are assessed.
  • Payments for environmental services: From theory to practice
    Pagiola, Stefano; Platais, G. (2006)
    This paper aims to help in the design and implementation of PES programs. It draws primarily on the experience of the World Bank in helping its member countries develop Payments for Environmental Services(PES) programs, but also on a broader review of similar efforts.
  • Selling forest environmental services: Market-based mechanisms for conservation and development
    Pagiola, Stefano; Bishop, J.; Landell-Mills, N. (London, UK: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 2002)
    Forest destruction throughout the world poses significant risks. Not only are forests a source of valuable timber and non-timber products, but they also provide important environmental services that help sustain life on Earth. However, only rarely do beneficiaries pay for the services they receive, resulting in low incentives to conserve forests, and limiting opportunities for rural development. Market-based approaches are thought to offer considerable promise as a means to promote forest conservation, and as a new source of income for rural communities. However, it has proven difficult to translate the theory into practice. Based on extensive research and case studies of markets for biodiversity conservation, watershed protection and carbon sequestration, this book demonstrates how payment systems can be established in practice, their effectiveness and their implications for the poor.
  • 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.
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    Using markets to preserve forests and the services they provide
    Pagiola, Stefano (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)
    This presentation describes the opportunity and theory behind using market-based Payments for Environmental Services to preserve forests. Pagiola discusses the challenges, limitations and possibilities of PES schemes for forest and water services, drawing from several case studies.
  • Using payments for environmental services (PES) to assist in Watershed Management
    Pagiola, Stefano; Angeles, M. D.; Shively, Gerald E. (2005)
    In this Chapter the authors briefly review the logic behind Payment of Environmental Services (PES) and examine the potential for using a PES programme to address environmental and poverty concerns in the Manupali River watershed.