Payments for ecosystem services and landowner interest: Informing program design trade-offs in Western Panama

Local actions for the common good: Can the application of the ecosystem services concept generate improved societal outcomes from natural resource management?

“…In Costa Rica, the primary buyer of services is the government through the National Forest Finance Fund (FONAFIFO) with funds provided through part of the proceeds of a tax on gasoline (Pagiola, 2008). The short-term nature of contracts (services are purchased for five years) means there is uncertainty about the provision of services after termination (Rico García-Amado et al, 2013), and suggestions have been put forward for longer-term (e.g., 30 -50 years) contracts to give greater assurance to both sellers and buyers (Arriagada et al, 2015;Duke et al, 2014). Other issues were the lack of capacity of smallholders and poorer landowners to participate, lack of incentives for afforestation activities and the extent to which the payments are actually resulting in improved provision of services with most funds going to wealthy landowners with larger land areas to protect forests that may not be under imminent threat of clearing (Porass et al, 2013;Robalino and Pfaff, 2013).…”

Farmers’ Awareness of Ecosystem Services and the Associated Policy Implications

“…Currently, the ecological economics perspective is being emphasized, which mainly pertains to the economic value of the ecosystem services. Numerous papers have posited estimations of the economic value of the services of specific regions, species or processes [14][15][16][17]. One such influential study by Costanza et al, published in a journal titled Nature, concluded that the economic value of global ecosystem services far exceeded the total value of the global economy.…”