Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services in the Developing World: Framing Pan-Tropical Analysis and Comparison
Brent Swallow, Mikkel Kallesoe, Usman Iftikhar, Meine van Noordwijk, Carina Bracer, Sara Scherr, K.V. Raju, Susan Poats, Anantha Duraiappah, Benson Ochieng, Hein Mallee and Rachel Rumley
This is the first of a series of nine papers exploring the state of the science and practice of compensationand rewards for environmental services in the developing world. This study has been undertaken to address key questions about the impact and future prospects of compensation and rewards for ecosystem services, and the potential role of research and policy engagement in helping to make these instruments more beneficial to the poor in the developing world. The papers resulting from this study have been prepared by an international group of authors as part of a pan-tropical scoping study for the Rural Poverty and Environment Programme of the International Development Research Centre of Canada. All of the papers focus on the frontiers between the ecosystems that underlie rural livelihoods, the environmental services that those ecosystems generate, and the human well-being of rural populations.
This introductory paper begins with a review of the recent historical development of compensation and reward mechanisms within a broader context of changing approaches to conservation and environmental policy. Conservation approaches have moved from a sole focus on protected areas, to integrated conservation and development projects, to landscape management approaches, and now, consideration of conservation contracts. At roughly the same time, there has been a general relaxation of government enforcement of environmental regulations towards more multi-stakeholder forms of governance in which non-governmental and international organizations play roles and a variety of market-based and negotiation approaches have come to the fore. That dynamic context is fostering greater interest in mechanisms for compensation and reward for environmental services in the developing regions of the world. Later sections of the paper clarify key concepts and present a conceptual framework for characterizing different types of mechanisms and the internal and external factors affecting those mechanisms. The penultimate section summarizes experience and perceptions of compensation and reward for environmental services. The concluding section postulates the alternative motivations that are shaping compensation and reward mechanisms in the developing world.
Background
From the beginning of 2006 until March 2007, the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) led a consortium of organizations and individuals from around the world in a pan-tropical scoping study of Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services (CRES). The scoping study was commissioned by the Rural Poverty and Environment Programme of the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) to identify critical issues affecting the development, operation, impacts and institutionalization of mechanisms linking beneficiaries of ecosystem services with stewards of those ecosystems. Particular attention is paid to the potential for CRES to alleviate or exacerbate the multiple dimensions of poverty: rights to productive assets, streams of income and consumption, and vulnerability to shocks.
The scoping study included a series of regional workshops held in Latin America (Quito, Ecuador), Asia (Bangalore, India) and Africa (Nairobi, Kenya). Participants presented and discussed practical CRES experiences from across the developing world, experiences which informed and challenged the development of several cross-cutting issue papers. A series of nine working papers have been prepared to summarize the results of the scoping study, including an introductory paper, three regional workshop reports, and five issue papers on key topics.
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