BIO-CULTURAL COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS IN THE
CONTEXT OF PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
PART II / CHAPTER 6
flood and air control), cultural services (such as aesthetics,
“resources users and communities that are in a position to
recreation and spirituality), and supporting services
provide ESS should be compensated for the cost of their
(such as the cycling of nutrients or other mechanisms that
provision and those who benefit from these services should
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maintain the conditions for life on earth). The Assessment
pay for them, thereby internalizing these benefits.”
exercise, which included more than 1,300 scientists from
PES agreements are mutually beneficial contracts between
more than 95 countries, found that 60% of the resources
consumers of ESS and the suppliers of these services.
examined were being degraded faster than they
A widely accepted definition of PES by Sven Wunder
can recover.
5
describes them as …a voluntary transaction in which a welldefined environmental service (ES), or a form of land use
In the context of PES schemes, ESS are usually divided into
likely to secure that service is bought by at least one ES buyer
the following related categories based on the type of service
from a minimum of one ES provider if and only if the
they are providing: carbon sequestration, biodiversity
provider continues to supply that service (conditionality).
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protection, watershed protection, and landscape beauty.
The management or protection of one ecosystem often
PES seeks to reward individuals who conserve their
generates more than one type of service, which is referred to
environment by offering them financial or other incentives
as the bundling of services. ESS can also be divided based on
in an effor t to positively reinforce and improve
whether the spatial boundaries of the services are provided
their behavior. The party supplying the environmental
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services, known as the provider, holds the property or related
locally, regionally or globally.
rights over an environmental good that provides a flow of
A landmark study by Robert Constanza et al. in 1998, which
benefits in terms of a certain ESS to the demanding party
became the basis of a significant amount of thinking on
(user) in return for compensation. Interestingly, users of ESS
ESS valuation, estimated the global value of ESS to over $33
are willing to pay a price lower than their welfare gain due to
trillion per year, the vast majority of which remains outside
the services acquired, while providers are willing to accept a
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the market. Although the quantitative valuation of ESS
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payment that is greater than the cost of providing the services.
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is complex and susceptible to subjectivity the economic
value of ESS remains undisputed, with an increasing
There is currently no commonly agreed-on definition of
acknowledgement that such costs need to be integrated
PES schemes, but there is a series of classifications under
into the market in order to increase the protection of
which PES schemes fall, based on the nature of the ESS
ecosystems generating ESS in the first place.
provided, its geographical scope, the structure of the market,
and the type of payment involved. There is a great diversity
2.2 Payment for Ecosystem Services
of existing models of PES schemes usually adapted to very
specific conditions of each scheme and location.
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The PES framework promotes the conservation of natural
The most common forms of PES are carbon storage and
resources in the marketplace by providing incentives to
sequestration, wetlands conservation, watershed protection
incorporate sustainable practices into production and
(including soil protection), and species, habitat and
resource management. PES hinges on the principle that
biodiversity conservation.
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4. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. Synthesis Report. http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx
5. UNEP, 2008, PES – A Primer. http://www.unep.org/pdf/PaymentsForEcosystemServices_en.pdf
6. “Payments for ecosystem services – issues and pro poor opportunities for development assistance” by Helle Munk Ravnborg, Mette Gervin Damsgaard and
Kim Raben, DIIS Report, 2007:6.
7. “The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital” Robert Constanza et al. Ecological Economics 25 (1998) 3–15.
8. See for example: Pagiola, S., von Ritter, K., and Bishop, J. 2004. How Much is an Ecosystem Worth? Assessing the Economic Value of Conservation. IUCN, TNC, The World Bank.
9. Mayrand, Karel, and Marc Paquin, 2004, Payments for Environmental Services: A Survey and Assessment of Current Schemes, Unisféra International Centre, from
10. Supra note 6.
11. Oliver, J., Emerton, L., Smith, M., 2008, Design Payments for Ecosystem Services: Report from the East Asian Regional Workshop (Hanoi, April 2008),
IUCN, last visited 5 June 2009.
12. Bulte, E., Lipper, L., Stringer, R., Zilberman, D., 2008, “Payments for ecosystem services and poverty reduction: concepts, issues, and empirical perspectives,”
Environment and Development Economics, 13 , pp 245-254.
13. Supra note 10.
14. Ferraro, Paul, 2007, Regional Review of Payments for Watershed Services: Sub-Saharan Africa, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Department of Economics at
Georgia State University, from last visited 9 June 2009.
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