Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications

This article looks into the scope and equity implications of applying payments for environmental services (PES) as a REDD implementation mechanism in the Brazilian Amazon. We establish a set of economic and institutional preconditions for PES to become a feasible and cost-effective conservation mech...

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Autores principales: Borner, J., Wunder, Sven, Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Shiela, Tito, M.R., Pereira, L.S., Nascimento, N.
Formato: Journal Article
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/20398
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author Borner, J.
Wunder, Sven
Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Shiela
Tito, M.R.
Pereira, L.S.
Nascimento, N.
author_browse Borner, J.
Nascimento, N.
Pereira, L.S.
Tito, M.R.
Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Shiela
Wunder, Sven
author_facet Borner, J.
Wunder, Sven
Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Shiela
Tito, M.R.
Pereira, L.S.
Nascimento, N.
author_sort Borner, J.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description This article looks into the scope and equity implications of applying payments for environmental services (PES) as a REDD implementation mechanism in the Brazilian Amazon. We establish a set of economic and institutional preconditions for PES to become a feasible and cost-effective conservation mechanism. We proceed with a macro-scale spatial analysis and overlay of opportunity costs, deforestation patterns, carbon services, and land tenure, in order to assess where these conditions hold. We then screen how the benefits of potential PES schemes might be distributed across different socioeconomic groups of service providers in different land tenure categories. Our economic–quantitative analysis, though sensitive to documented assumptions, suggests that under current carbon prices the economic preconditions are in place to pay for avoided deforestation in over half of threatened forests over the next decade. Unfortunately, the same optimism does not apply to institutional preconditions. Land grabbing, insecure tenure, overlapping claims, and lacking information on private tenure constitute real medium-term impediments to PES. If payments were to accrue to current landholders regardless of current tenure insecurities, large landowners who account for about 80% of all deforestation would reap the highest benefits, though per-capita benefits other tenure categories are also high. Schemes that closely align payments with opportunity costs are preferable for cost-effectiveness, and not necessarily more inequitable in outcomes. Essentially, PES systems cannot substitute command-and-control measures: the former depend on the latter for basic governance systems to secure effective rights of exclusion, which land stewards essentially need in order to become reliable service providers.
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spelling CGSpace203982025-01-24T14:20:20Z Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications Borner, J. Wunder, Sven Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Shiela Tito, M.R. Pereira, L.S. Nascimento, N. redd-plus payments for environmental services opportunity costs tenure systems biodiversity design This article looks into the scope and equity implications of applying payments for environmental services (PES) as a REDD implementation mechanism in the Brazilian Amazon. We establish a set of economic and institutional preconditions for PES to become a feasible and cost-effective conservation mechanism. We proceed with a macro-scale spatial analysis and overlay of opportunity costs, deforestation patterns, carbon services, and land tenure, in order to assess where these conditions hold. We then screen how the benefits of potential PES schemes might be distributed across different socioeconomic groups of service providers in different land tenure categories. Our economic–quantitative analysis, though sensitive to documented assumptions, suggests that under current carbon prices the economic preconditions are in place to pay for avoided deforestation in over half of threatened forests over the next decade. Unfortunately, the same optimism does not apply to institutional preconditions. Land grabbing, insecure tenure, overlapping claims, and lacking information on private tenure constitute real medium-term impediments to PES. If payments were to accrue to current landholders regardless of current tenure insecurities, large landowners who account for about 80% of all deforestation would reap the highest benefits, though per-capita benefits other tenure categories are also high. Schemes that closely align payments with opportunity costs are preferable for cost-effectiveness, and not necessarily more inequitable in outcomes. Essentially, PES systems cannot substitute command-and-control measures: the former depend on the latter for basic governance systems to secure effective rights of exclusion, which land stewards essentially need in order to become reliable service providers. 2010 2012-06-04T09:13:20Z 2012-06-04T09:13:20Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/20398 en Borner, J., Wunder, S., Wertz-Kanounnikoff, S., Tito, M.R., Pereira, L.S., Nascimento, N. 2010. Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications . Ecological Economics 69 :1272-1282. ISSN: 0921-8009.
spellingShingle redd-plus
payments for environmental services
opportunity costs
tenure systems
biodiversity
design
Borner, J.
Wunder, Sven
Wertz-Kanounnikoff, Shiela
Tito, M.R.
Pereira, L.S.
Nascimento, N.
Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications
title Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications
title_full Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications
title_fullStr Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications
title_full_unstemmed Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications
title_short Direct conservation payments in the Brazilian Amazon: Scope and equity implications
title_sort direct conservation payments in the brazilian amazon scope and equity implications
topic redd-plus
payments for environmental services
opportunity costs
tenure systems
biodiversity
design
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/20398
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