Browsing by Author "Wunder, Sven"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 28
  • Are direct payments for environmental services spelling doom for sustainable forest management in the tropics?
    Wunder, Sven (2006)
    Over the past several decades, significant donor funding has been directed to sustainable forest management in the tropics, in the hope of combining forest conservation with economic gains through sustainable use. To date, this approach has produced only modest results in terms of changed silvicultural and land-use practices in this area. Direct payments for environmental services (PES) have been suggested as a promising alternative but still remain widely untested in the tropics. This paper first provides a conceptual assessment of PES, comparing the main features of this practice with those of other conservation instruments. Second, the paper discusses a series of critical questions that have been raised about both the environmental and livelihood impacts of PES. It is concluded that some ex ante judgments about the effects of PES may have been overly critical, and that, based on preliminary assessments, there is good reason to continue experimental PES implementation for purposes of consolidating our knowledge.
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    Between purity and reality: Taking stock of PES schemes in the Andes
    Wunder, Sven (2006)
    This editorial by Sven Wunder, Senior Economist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Belém, Brazil, describes findings from a survey of PES field initiatives in the Andes.
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    Beyond "markets": Why terminology matters
    Wunder, Sven; Vargas, M. T. (2005)
    What is in a name? Does a rose by any other name truly smell as sweet? Aware that terms such as "markets" and "payments for ecosystem services" have encountered resistance in some parts of the world, the Ecosystem Marketplace asked two practitioners based in Latin America to explore how the concept of "markets/payments for ecosystem services" is being perceived in developing countries.
  • Decentralized payments for environmental services: The cases of Pimampiro and PROFAFOR in Ecuador
    Wunder, Sven; Albán, M. (Elsevier B.V., 2008)
    This article evaluates two established payment for environmental services (PES) schemes in Ecuador: the watershed protection program in Pimampiro and the PROFAFOR carbon sequestration program. The design, effectiveness, and impacts of these schemes are described and compared.
  • 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.
  • The efficiency of payments for environmental services in tropical conservation
    Wunder, Sven (Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2007)
    Payments for environmental services (PES) represent a new, more direct way to promote conservation. They explicitly recognize the need to address difficult trade-offs by bridging the interests of landowners and external actors through compensations. Theoretical assessments praise the advantages of PES over indirect approaches, but in the tropics PES application has remained incipient. Here I aim to demystify PES and clarify its scope for application as a tool for tropical conservation. I focus on the supply side of PES (i.e., how to convert PES funding into effective conservation on the ground), which until now has been widely neglected. I reviewed the PES literature for developing countries and combined these findings with observations from my own field studies in Latin America and Asia. A PES scheme, simply stated, is a voluntary, conditional agreement between at least one 'seller' and one 'buyer' over a well-defined environmental service or a land use presumed to produce that service. Major obstacles to effective PES include demand-side limitations and a lack of supply-side know-how regarding implementation. The design of PES programs can be improved by explicitly outlining baselines, calculating conservation opportunity costs, customizing payment modalities, and targeting agents with credible land claims and threats to conservation. Expansion of PES can occur if schemes can demonstrate clear additionality (i.e., incremental conservation effects vis-`a-vis predefined baselines), if PES recipients' livelihood dynamics are better understood, and if efficiency goals are balanced with considerations of fairness. PES are arguably best suited to scenarios of moderate conservation opportunity costs on marginal lands and in settings with emerging, not-yet realized threats. Actors who represent credible threats to the environment will more likely receive PES than those already living in harmony with nature. A PES scheme can thus benefit both buyers and sellers while improving the resource base, but it is unlikely to fully replace other conservation instruments.
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    Forest ecosystem services: Can they pay our way out of deforestation?
    Nasi, R.; Wunder, Sven; Campos, J. J. (2002)
    The ecosystem services provided by forests are vital to humanity and cannot be fully replaced by technology. The services provided by forests are threatened and damaged by human activities, making restoration and protection imperative. Economic valuation of forest services is a useful tool, but has limitations and flaws. It is necessary to provide incentives for resource owners to make conservation more desirable than other alternative
  • Fresh tracks in the forest: Assessing incipient payments for environmental services initiatives in Bolivia
    Robertson, N.; Wunder, Sven (Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), 2005)
    This study provides an overview and assessment of environmental, economic and social effects of various PES-related initiatives as well as an overview of challenges and promoting factors to PES in Bolivia. We use five criteria to define PES systems: a voluntary agreement, a well-defined service, at least one buyer, at least one seller, and a conditional (quid pro quo) transaction. We examined 17 initiatives that were either ongoing or under preparation in various parts of Bolivia. We were able to closely analyse nine of these, which we consider our primary case studies. Most of these initiatives are still fairly young, and the analyses of their effects remain preliminary. Conceptually, we found that none of the existing initiatives in Bolivia satisfies all the above-mentioned criteria. Thus, no 'pure' PES scheme currently exists in Bolivia. However, several experiences use direct economic incentives and satisfy several of the criteria. There is thus a broader family of 'PES-like' projects exhibiting some important PES elements.
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    Hot potatoes in the Payments for Environmental Services debate
    Wunder, Sven (2007)
    This presentation discusses:
  • How can market mechanisms for forest environmental services help the poor? Preliminary lessons from Latin America
    Grieg-Gran, M.; Porras, I.; Wunder, Sven (Elsevier, 2005)
    Market mechanisms for forest environmental services are a new approach for conservation but there is also increasing interest in the derived developmental benefits of these mechanisms. We first propose a conceptual framework for future research on the livelihood impacts of environmental service markets. We then review eight Latin American case studies on carbon sequestration and watershed protection market initiatives, finding positive local income effects in most cases, more land tenure security and socio-institutional strengthening in some cases, but some negative effects also. We recommend pro-poor policy measures such as reducing smallholders' transaction costs, and removing inappropriate access restrictions.
  • Huellas frescas en el bosque: Evaluación de iniciativas incipientes de pagos por servicios ambientales en Bolivia
    Robertson, N.; Wunder, Sven (Bogor, Indonesia: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), 2005)
    Se examinaron 17 iniciativas, emplazadas en distintas partes de Bolivia, que estaban en curso o bien en preparación. Se analizaron minuciosamente nueve de éstas, las cuales consideramos como nuestros principales estudios de caso. La mayoría de estas iniciativas son relativamente recientes y los análisis de sus efectos siguen siendo preliminares. Conceptualmente, se determinó que ninguna de las iniciativas existentes en Bolivia satisface todos los criterios anteriormente mencionados. Por tanto, no existe actualmente un esquema ¿puro¿ de PSA en Bolivia. No obstante, varias experiencias usan incentivos económicos directos y satisfacen varios de los criterios. Existe, por consiguiente, una familia más amplia de iniciativas ¿de tipo PSA¿ que muestran algunos elementos importantes de PSA.
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    La experiencia Colombiana en esquemas de pagos por servicios ambientales
    Blanco, Javier (2006)
    El presente documento realiza una recopilación y análisis de casos con características de pago por servicios ambientales en diseño u operación en Colombia. El principal objetivo de este documento es utilizar este análisis para brindar recomendaciones a Conservación Internacional para la utilización de esquemas de pago por servicios ambientales en cuencas hidrográficas como instrumento de conservación de la biodiversidad en el Corredor Nor-andino – una zona prioritaria de conservación que abarca la cordillera oriental colombiana y la serranía del Mérida en Venezuela.
  • Pagos por servicios ambientales: Principios básicos esenciales
    Wunder, Sven (Jakarta, Indonesia: CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research), 2006)
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    Paying for watershed services in Latin America: A review of current initiatives
    Southgate, Doug; Wunder, Sven (Blacksburg, Va.: SANREM CRSP, OIRED, Virginia Tech, 2007)
    This paper addresses the challenge of using PES to enhance hydrologic services in Latin America. To begin, the current state of implementation is described. We are able to identify just a few sites where each and every feature of PES is in place and many places where some but not all these features have been adopted. In the latter part of the paper, we examine why PES implementation remains incipient in Latin America, albeit farther along than in other parts of the developing world. Our analysis focuses on public policy, institutional factors, and political realities affecting PES in Latin America.
  • Paying for watershed services in Latin America: A review of current initiatives
    Southgate, Doug; Wunder, Sven (Taylor & Francis, 2009)
    This article assesses the current status of payment for watershed environmental services (PWS) schemes in Latin America. While the region has a greater abundance and more advanced initiatives than Africa or Asia, most do not meet all the criteria for true PES (Payments for Environmental Services), often lacking conditionality. The authors discuss challenges and barriers to PWS, with a focus on three case studies in Pimampiro, Ecuador; Quito, Ecuador; and Mexico.
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    Payment for environmental services at the local level: Comparing two cases in Ecuador
    Albán, M.; Wunder, Sven (2005)
    In Ecuador, a series of experiences of payment for environmental services (PES) have been developed. Contrasting from what happens in Costa Rica, where a central PES implementing authority exists, the initiatives in Ecuador are developed in a decentralised fashion. Here we define PES as those voluntary and conditioned transactions of well-defined environmental services between at least one supplier and one user (Wunder, 2005, pp.3). In this article, we analyze the two local experiences that are probably better related to this theoretical concept of PES: PROFAFOR, which has been establishing plantations to fix carbon, mainly in the Sierra for the last 13 years, and the pioneering experience of Pimampiro, which is five years old and has become a model of protection of water resources among small municipalities.
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    Payment for environmental services at the local level: Comparing two cases in Ecuador
    Albán, M.; Wunder, Sven (2005)
    This presentation analyzes the two local experiences of implementing payment for environmental services (PES) in Ecuador. PROFAFOR, which has been establishing plantations to fix carbon, mainly in the Sierra for the last 13 years, and the pioneering experience of Pimampiro, which is five years old and has become a model of protection of water resources among small municipalities.
  • Payment is good, control is better: why payments for forest environmental services in Vietnam have so far remained incipient
    Wunder, Sven; The, B. D.; Ibarra, E. (Bogor, Indonesia: CIFOR, 2005)
    The study discusses the types of PES and PES-like initiatives that have been implemented in Vietnam. The authors summarize both the achievements and challenges for using PES in Vietnam based on review and analysis of current projects. They found numerous PES-like schemes, but concluded that no full PES initiatives have been implemented, according to their definition of "the PES principle". The identified reasons for this are 1) a lack of land-use decision-making power among landholder (due to state control of forest land use), 2) a lack of conditionality for receiving payments, and 3) inadequate funding to cover opportunity cost of alternative uses.
  • 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.
  • Payments for environmental services: Some nuts and bolts
    Wunder, Sven (Jakarta, Indonesia: CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research), 2005)
    Payments for environmental services (PES) are part of a new and more direct conservation paradigm, explicitly recognizing the need to bridge the interests of landowners and outsiders. Eloquent theoretical assessments have praised the absolute advantages of PES over traditional conservation approaches. Some pilot PES exist in the tropics, but many field practitioners and prospective service buyers and sellers remain skeptical about the concept. This paper aims to help demystify PES for non-economists, starting with a simple and coherent definition of the term. It then provides practical "how-to" hints for PES design. It considers the likely niche for PES in the portfolio of conservation approaches. This assessment is based on a literature review, combined with field observations from research in Latin America and Asia. It concludes that service users will continue to drive PES, but their willingness to pay will only rise if schemes can demonstrate clear additionality vis-à-vis carefully established baselines, if trust-building processes with service providers are sustained, and PES recipients' livelihood dynamics is better understood. PES best suits intermediate and/or projected threat scenarios, often in marginal lands with moderate conservation opportunity costs. People facing credible but medium-sized environmental degradation are more likely to become PES recipients than those living in relative harmony with Nature. The choice between PES cash and in-kind payments is highly context-dependent. Poor PES recipients are likely to gain from participation, though their access might be constrained and non-participating landless poor could lose out. PES is a highly promising conservation approach that can benefit buyers, sellers and improve the resource base, but it is unlikely to completely outstrip other conservation instruments.