Payment for Ecosystem Services and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Securing Resource Flows for the Affluent?

Abstract

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) is not only a prominent, globally promoted policy to foster nature conservation, but also increasingly propagated as an innovative and self-sustaining governance instrument to support poverty alleviation and to guarantee water, food, and energy securities. In this paper, we evaluate a PES scheme from a multi-scalar and political-ecology perspective in order to reveal different power dynamics across the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus perspective. For this purpose, we analyze the PES scheme implemented in the Hidrosogamoso hydropower project in Colombia. The paper shows that actors’ strongly divergent economic and political power is determinant in defining how and for whom the Nexus-related water, food, and energy securities are materialized. In this case, the PES scheme and its scalar politics, as fostered by the private/public hydropower alliance, are instrumental to guaranteeing water security for the hydropower scheme, which is a crucial building-block of Colombia’s energy security discourse. For this, the water and food securities of the adjacent, less powerful communities are sacrificed. Examining the on-the-ground politics of WEF Nexus is key to understanding their impact on equitable and sustainable governance of water, energy, and food in the everyday lives of millions of resource users. We conclude that politicizing the Nexus can help to trace both the flows of resources and the flows of power.

Re-Theorizing Politics in Water Governance

“…Their analysis highlights the various narratives for and against the project, highlighting the intensely political contestations and ways it was discursively linked to ideas of corruption or elite interests [56]. In line with the "post-political" (above), both Rodríguez-de-Francisco et al [55] and Atkins [56] highlight how "politics" can become obfuscated through particular discourses (e.g., national interests or economic benefits) and formalized social-ecological institutional arrangements (i.e., PES), producing spaces for the consolidation, justification, and development of large-dam development.…”

“…Here, the politics and practices of zoning, engineering, and other technical requirements are important factors that produce and animate "underserved" Muslim areas of the city [54]. Offering another example of entanglements between institutions and infrastructure is Rodríguez-de-Francisco et al [55], who explore the extent to which a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme contributes to an integrated and sustainable Water-Energy-Food nexus (WEF) in Colombia. Where PES is often idealized as an integrative institutional mechanism capable of accounting for environmental externalities, their research suggests the program helps justify large-dam development and has enabled the developer to directly and indirectly accumulate and secure the reservoir's water while constraining the possible set of livelihoods in upstream and downstream spaces [55].…”

“…Where PES is often idealized as an integrative institutional mechanism capable of accounting for environmental externalities, their research suggests the program helps justify large-dam development and has enabled the developer to directly and indirectly accumulate and secure the reservoir's water while constraining the possible set of livelihoods in upstream and downstream spaces [55]. Such institutional arrangements thus do not inherently (or even, actively) contribute to a sustainable and equitable WEF nexus [55]. Their analysis attends to the diverse politics, negotiations and experiences across scales in an effort to illuminate which interests are served by such projects, and as a means of countering the universalized language, logics, and objectives of PES and the WEF nexus [55].…”

“…Such institutional arrangements thus do not inherently (or even, actively) contribute to a sustainable and equitable WEF nexus [55]. Their analysis attends to the diverse politics, negotiations and experiences across scales in an effort to illuminate which interests are served by such projects, and as a means of countering the universalized language, logics, and objectives of PES and the WEF nexus [55]. A third example comes from Atkins [56], who suggests the "national interest" of the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil is a core site around which both de-politicization (economic benefits) and re-politicization (corruption) movements converge and coalesce.…”

A Literature Review to Propose a Systematic Procedure to Develop “Nexus Thinking” Considering the Water–Energy–Food Nexus

“…Qualitative evaluation-social elements [41,84,88,91,122,150,[158][159][160][161]164] (a) Historical context analysis: social, demographic, economic, political, and cultural relations present in the area of study; (b) Analysis of the composition and operation of the sectoral structure: number of institutions and actors, legislations, and governance; (c) Characterization of the level of integration of the sectoral composition.…”