Journal Articles

Payments for Ecosystem Services in Nicaragua: Do Market-based Approaches Work?

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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 the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Approaches to Ecosystem Management 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.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Development and Change

Call Number

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Publisher

Hoboken, United States : Wiley-Blackwell., 2010

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0012155x

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 41 Issue 3, May 2010. Pages 421 - 444

Subject(s)

Nicaragua
Payments for Ecosystem Services Concept
Local institutional transformation
Community governance

Specific Detail Info

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