Publication
Title
Playing before paying? A PES simulation game for assessing power inequalities and motivations in the governance of Ecosystem Services
Author
Abstract
Market-based conservation instruments, such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), have become a dominant paradigm for environmental policies. Despite their broad endorsement, the implementation of PES schemes often rests on deep-seated power asymmetries and, therefore, risks reproducing existing inequalities. Thus, examination of PES should include how these schemes are constructed and negotiated between different actors, explicitly recognising their varying social positions, value frameworks and conflicting or collaborative relations. In this article we present a 'PES simulation game' as an alternative methodology to enhance understanding of complex negotiations between diverse actors involved in Ecosystem Services (ES) governance. The game mimics historical processes of agrarian change and social differentiation, simulates a range of ES governance interventions, and creates space for participants to collectively reflect on the motivational and socio-political dynamics triggered by the interventions. We discuss some of the main game dynamics as well as reflections generated by the game while examining a PES intervention in the Nicaraguan agricultural frontier. We illustrate the game's potential for improving understanding of farmers' constraints in decision-making processes and of the ways in which patron-client relationships within divergent value systems interact with specific ES governance interventions. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Ecosystem services
Publication
2018
ISSN
2212-0416
DOI
10.1016/J.ECOSER.2018.03.024
Volume/pages
34 :B (2018) , p. 218-227
ISI
000451480300007
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 18.01.2019
Last edited 02.10.2024
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