Effects of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) on Deforestation and Poverty in Low and Middle Income Countries: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This Campbell systematic review examines the effects of payment for environmental services (PES) programmes on deforestation and poverty, and whether environmental and poverty reduction goals conflict with one another. The review summarizes evidence from 11 studies covering six PES programmes in four countries. The modest effectiveness of PES programmes means that they are not cost‐effective. Relative to the extensive investment to measure forest conditions, efforts to assess the effects of PES programmes on deforestation and poverty are limited and methodologically weak. Abstract We conducted a systematic review of studies on the impact of payments for environmental services (PES) that set natural forest conservation as the goal on deforestation and poverty in developing countries. The review is motivated by debates over whether the pursuits of conservation and poverty reduction in developing countries tend to conflict or whether they might be complementary. A search for rigorous impact evaluation studies identified eleven quantitative and nine associated qualitative evaluation studies assessing the effects of PES. The methodological rigor of these studies varied widely, meaning that the evidence base for the impact of PES policies is limited in both quantity and quality. Given the evidence available, we find little reason for optimism about the potential for current PES approaches to achieve both conservation and poverty reduction benefits jointly. We call for the production of high quality impact evaluations, using randomisation when possible, to assess whether the apparent incompatibility of conservation and poverty reduction might be overcome through programming innovations. Executive summary BACKGROUNDNatural forest preservation in the tropics, and thus in developing countries, must be an element of any effective effort to manage climate change. Forests serve as natural carbon sinks, which help to mitigate the effect of other carbon emissions. However, forest cover is being reduced and it is estimated that deforestation is responsible for 10‐17 per cent of global carbon emissions. Since 2007, governments have coordinated conservation efforts under the Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiative, which has led to the implementation of various programs designed to reduce the amount of forested land converted to other purposes.Payment for environmental services (PES) programs is one type of intervention commonly implemented under the REDD+ umbrella. PES programs allow for direct exchange between those demanding ‘environmental services’ such as protection or rehabilitation of natural forests and those in a position to provide them locally. While the primary goal of reducing deforestation is clear, the policy and academic literature debates the extent to which PES programs in developing countries should incorporate goals of poverty reduction. Some argue that the targeting of poverty goals will undermine conservation effectiveness (e.g., because behavioural change among poor...

Emerging Evidence on the Effectiveness of Tropical Forest Conservation

“…PES and certification), and enabling institutional arrangements, such as jurisdictional support measures and community-based natural resource management [28]. Of these interventions, protected areas represent the most frequently studied forest conservation tool in the evaluation literature [29], whereas counterfactual-based evaluations of incentive-based conservation programs are only slowly emerging [30]. While a considerable amount of literature exists on community-based natural resource management, few study designs allow for statistically rigorous assessments of effectiveness [31].…”

“…To compare the forest conservation effects across the eight studies that explicitly measure changes in forest cover, we compute effect sizes in terms of average annual change in forest cover (Fig 2), following the approach proposed by Puyravaud [34] and used by Samii et al [30] to systematically compare effect sizes across a number of PES schemes. Effects on annual average percentage forest cover and the respective standard errors are calculated as: and where FC T is mean forest cover in treated observation units, Δ is the estimated effect, and t 2 -t 1 the number of years elapsed over the evaluation period.…”

“…This literature has a strong focus on protected areas [29], but also increasingly covers incentive-based conservation measures, such as PES, and enabling community support measures [30]. By allowing for the construction of observed rather than stated outcome measures, the increased availability of and improved access to remote sensing-based forest cover estimates over the past decade has clearly advanced this line of research.…”

“…Cautiously interpret early systematic reviews: It is probably too early to derive general lessons on individual policy instruments such as attempted in recent systematic reviews, for example, on PES [30]. As the studies in this Collection show, the effectiveness of forest conservation instruments in the same category can vary by factor six in terms of effects on annual forest cover change (see Fig 2), with high levels of variation particularly between, but even within countries.…”

What have we learned after ten years of systematic reviews in international development?

“…• Payments for environmental services are effective in reducing deforestation and increasing forest cover, and in improving household incomes (Samii et al, 2014b). But the effects are small and unlikely to justify the costs of the schemes, and may not benefit poor people.…”