Payments for Ecosystem Services and Stakeholder's Perspectives in Serbia

Abstract

Payments for environmental services (PES) have attracted increasing interest as a mechanism to translate non-market values of the environment, into real financial incentives for local actors to provide environmental services. The PES concept is relatively new to Serbia. However, recent laws regulating the use of natural resources have enabled some basic environmental economics mechanisms. The current Environmental Protection Act in Serbia adopted the "user pays" principle and introduced fees for the use of natural resources and some ecological services. Other laws, such as the Water Act and the Forest Act, also regulate payments for the use of natural resources. Two ministries share the responsibility of water management in Serbia: the Ministry of the Environment (ME) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management (MAFWM). Fund for Water is not an institution, but a separate budget item in the national budget. It was established in 2010 by the Law on Waters. Six types of charges go into the Fund for Water. Financial plan for water management activities for 2011. shows that the highest financial part is directed to: management of water courses and flood control (32,93%). Some of the important characteristics of a PES schemes that are absent in existing financial mechanisms in Serbia are: explicit internalization of environmental costs; transparent pricing system; clear indications of purpose of charges; control of use of generated income; monitoring the efficiency of financed conservational measures.

Stakeholders’ Opinions towards Water-Related Forests Ecosystem Services in Selected Southeast European Countries (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia)

“…It could help in overcoming of the general feeling that we pay many environmental taxes and already have many financial instruments at our disposal to deliver WES [28]. In that study, the PES was perceived as just one burden more on the back of taxpayers, mostly because it was imposed as obligatory and the prescribed rate was a purely political decision, which in combination with lack of transparency in the distribution of collected funds, make this payment to be consider as too high and not necessary [28,32].…”

“…Command and control instruments are based on regulations that set environmental and emission targets and impose penalties for non-compliance with these standards [31]. In contrast, market-based instruments are based on price values or other economic values that can induce actors to reduce pollution or improve natural resource management [32]. Other studies examining the effectiveness of PES conclude that design is one of the most important influencing factors.…”

“…In addition, payments for WES are rarely investigated in these countries [26,[28][29][30], and the experiences and tangible results from member countries (Slovenia and Croatia) can be valuable resources and references for countries in the process of joining the EU (the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia) [31]. Many researches [32][33][34] emphasized the role of stakeholders in the possible improvement of policies and the implementation of the various strategies where we see huge potential in development of new PES schemes which will be more effective and much more easily endorsed by the payers if developed together with stakeholders and with cooperation between two respective sectors [35][36][37].…”