Elsevier

Ecosystem Services

Volume 12, April 2015, Pages 16-28
Ecosystem Services

Fairly efficient, efficiently fair: Lessons from designing and testing payment schemes for ecosystem services in Asia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2014.12.012Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • A prescriptive conceptualisation of payment for ecosystem services is not practical.

  • Commodification of ecosystem services is problematic and may be unfair.

  • Payment for ecosystem services has different degrees of conditionality in the provision of ES.

  • Fairness and efficiency objectives of PES need to be achieved simultaneously.

Abstract

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is commonly defined as a market-based environmental policy instrument to efficiently achieve ecosystem services provision. However, an increasing body of literature shows that this prescriptive conceptualization of PES cannot be easily generalized and implemented in practice, and that the commodification of ecosystem services (ES) is problematic and may lead to unfair situations for relevant PES actors. This paper synthesizes case studies in Indonesia, the Philippines and Nepal to provide empirical observations on emerging PES mechanisms in Asia. Lessons learned show that fairness and efficiency objectives must be achieved simultaneously in designing and implementing a sustainable PES scheme, especially in developing country contexts. Neither fairness nor efficiency is a primary aim but an intermediate ‘fairly efficient and efficiently fair’ PES may bridge the gap between PES theory and practice to increase sustainable ES provision and improve livelihoods.

Keywords

Payment for ecosystem services
Asia
Institution and governance
Pro-poor policy
Community-based natural resource management
Participatory approach

Cited by (0)