For sustainable ecosystems
U. SANKAR
|
On a variety of issues dealing with the valuation of ecosystems and challenges to PES schemes
|
PAYMENT FOR ECOSYSTEM SERVICES — Ecological Economics and Human Well-being: Edited by Pushpam Kumar and Roldan Muradian; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 695.
Ecosystems are dynamic complexes of plant, animal, and micro-organism communities and the non-living environment interacting as functional units. The Millennium Economic Assessment 2005 classifies the benefits people derive from the ecosystem under provisioning services such as food, water, timber and fibre; regulating services that affect climate, floods, disease, wastes and water quality; cultural services that provide recreational, aesthetic, and spiritual benefits; and supporting services such as soil formation, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling. According to the Assessment, the need for sustainable management of ecosystems arises because 15 out of 24 ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably; the changes being made are increasing the likelihood of non-linear changes that have important consequences for human well-being; and the harmful effects of the degradation of ecosystems are being borne disproportionately by the poor.
Sustainable management
Sustainable management of ecosystems requires policies for overcoming market failures, institutional failures and government failures. Markets exist only for some provisioning services and a few recreational services. For others, markets do not exist either because the transaction costs are high or because the services are not marketable.Forests and wetlands in most developing countries are under state ownership or common property systems with ill-defined, insecure and poorly enforced property rights. This environment of common properties does not provide incentives for conservation and sustainable use of the ecosystems. Publicly managed ecosystems often lack funds and are susceptible to policy failures.
One feasible option for sustainable management is to improve the functioning of existing markets, create new markets, or design cooperative institutions with provision for incentives and disincentives for the stakeholders. It is preferred by some stakeholders and policy makers because it carries the additional advantage of generating resources for conservation of the ecosystems. Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) is one such option, and it is being attempted in several countries.
Case studies
This book brings together 11 papers dealing with methodological issues in designing the PES and case studies of design and implementation problems. The editors refer to the PES as “economic transfers aiming to compensate agents for the provision of positive environmental externalities, which in principle should entail opportunity costs for providers.” They also recognise the potential of the PES to improve the living conditions of the rural population and become a driving force for rural development. PES schemes have been created for carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, hydrological services, and landscape beauty. Carbon sequestration is a climate change mitigation strategy and it is a global public good. Biodiversity conservation results in production of global, national and local public goods. Financial support for the production of global public goods to developing countries is available through the Global Environment Facility and Clean Development Mechanism.
The case studies relate to the use of economic tool to combat salinity recharge in a farming area in Australia; design-related issues in negotiation support systems for watershed environmental services in the Bhoj wetlands, Madhya Pradesh; economic incentives for small farmers to adopt organic management practices for mitigating off-site water quality impacts at the Bhoj wetlands; measurement of local communities’ willingness to pay for enhanced pollination services for farmlands surrounding Kakamega forest in Kenya; estimation of compensation to farmers for the damages caused to their crops by protected species, and incentives for farmers to adopt more environment-friendly agricultural practices in China; re-vegetation with a groundwater recharge credit scheme based on a ‘cap and trade’ approach in Australia; and marketing performances of suppliers of environmental services in Latin America.
Challenges
The authors narrate the area-specific features of ecosystems, identify the ecosystem services and the providers and users, outline the steps in design of the PES schemes, and the implementation experiences. Some discussion on the replicability of the experiments, and if so under what conditions, would have been useful.
The editors summarise a paper by Engel and Palmer in Chapter One but the paper itself is missing. They deserve credit for pointing out the gaps in research and the challenges that need to be met before the PES could become a driving force for rural development. They could have highlighted the difficulties in economic costing and measuring the incremental costs of ecosystem services.
The book will be useful for conservationists, environmental policy makers, and researchers in exploring the scope of adopting the PES concept in India and will also motivate them to fill gaps in research.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Book Review
