Impacts of Payments for Ecosystem Services on Deforestation in Mexico: Preliminary Lessons for REDD
Jennifer M. Alix-Garcia,
,
Elizabeth N. Shapiro
,
Katharine R.E. Sims
Impacts of Payments for Ecosystem Services on Deforestation in Mexico: Preliminary Lessons for REDD
The brief summarizes an evaluation of the environmental effectiveness of Mexico’s national Payments for Hydrological (Watershed) Services program, which compensates rural landowners for avoided deforestation. The evaluation found that in an early year of implementation Mexico’s program had a small to moderate but significant effect in reducing deforestation, indicating that financial compensation policies can be effective in preventing environmental degradation. The research also suggests that some slippage (leakage) of deforestation may have occurred, implying that avoided deforestation is best accounted for at a regional or national level. This paper is of interest for CBNRM because the Mexican government has adjusted its targeting criteria over time to include poor and indigenous communities as preferred beneficiaries in their national Payments for Hydrological Services program, sometimes but not always at a cost of reducing the environmental benefits that result from the program. Thus this unique program discusses Governance systems needed to manage incentives for and tradeoffs between Nature and Wealth, combines pro-poor PES incentives and CBNRM from the local to the national scale, and offers lessons for further scaling up for climate change mitigation through REDD+.
Michael Colby
USAID/E3/LTRM
2013-03-06
Tenure Briefs
U. Wisconsin-Madison Land Tenure Center
- Country-based case study
★★★★★
- Latin America and Caribbean - Mexico
Mexico
multiple
multiple
Mexico Payments for Hydrological Services program
- Forest
- Other (Write In)
- Groundwater
- Irrigation Water
Watersheds
- Watershed
- Improved information and knowledge management systems - [Accomplished]
- Promoted local land use planning and appropriate resource tenure systems - [Accomplished]
- Fostered innovation, social learning, and adaptive management - [Accomplished]
- Invested in local organizations - [Accomplished]
- Created a framework for better NRM choices - [Accomplished]
- Promoted or developed economic strategies for natural resource management - [Accomplished]
- Local stakeholder input into public decisions and policy - [Accomplished]
- Natural resource authority and functions distribution - [Accomplished]
- Continuous and inclusive consultations - [Accomplished]
- Land use planning
- Devolution to communities
- GIS/remote sensing
- Payments for ecosystem services
- Governance/empowerment - [Communal]
- Environmental/productivity - [Communal]
- Economic/income generation - [Communal]
- Governance/empowerment - [Communal]
- Environmental/productivity - [Communal]
- Governance/empowerment - [Communal]
- Environmental/productivity - [Communal]
- Economic/income generation - [Communal]
- Lessons learned (Cautionary Tale)
- Lessons learned (Success Story)
- Governance - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]
- Economic - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]
- Resources - [External or structural policies that influenced success or failure]
