Publication
Title
Payments for ecosystem services in Nicaragua : do market-based approaches work?
Author
Abstract
The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) is gaining increasing attention among scholars as well as conservation and development practitioners. The premises of this innovative conservation approach are appealing: private land users, usually poorly motivated to protect nature on their land, will do so if they receive payments from environmental service buyers which cover part of the land users opportunity costs of developing the land. However, this article warns against an over-enthusiastic adoption of a one-sided market-based PES approach.Based on a field study of theRegional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to EcosystemManagement Project (RISEMP), one of the main PES pilot projects in Nicaragua, it suggests that a mixture of economic and non-economic factors motivated farmers to adopt the envisaged silvopastoral practices and that the actual role of PES is mistakenly understood as a simple matter of financial incentives. The authors argue that PES approaches should be understood as a part of a broader process of local institutional transformation rather than as a market-based alternative for allegedly ineffective government and/or community governance.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Development and change. - Beverly Hills, Calif.
Publication
Beverly Hills, Calif. : 2010
ISSN
0012-155X [print]
1467-7660 [online]
DOI
10.1111/J.1467-7660.2010.01644.X
Volume/pages
41 :3 (2010) , p. 421-444
ISI
000279162200003
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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 16.07.2010
Last edited 19.08.2024
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