Payments for Environmental Services in a Policymix: Spatial and Temporal Articulation in Mexico

Abstract

Government based Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) have been criticized for not maximizing environmental effectiveness through appropriate targeting, while instead prioritizing social side-objectives. In Mexico, existing literature on how the Payments for Ecosystem Services-Hydrological program (PSA-H) has targeted deforestation and forest degradation shows that both the process of identifying the eligible areas and the choice of the selection criteria for enrolling forest parcels have been under the influence of competing agendas. In the present paper we study the influence of the PSA-H multi-level governance on the environmental effectiveness of the program–the degree to which forest at high risk of deforestation is enrolled- building from a “policyscape” framework. In particular, we combine governance analysis with two distinct applications of the policyscape framework: First, at national level we assess the functional overlap between the PSA-H and other environmental and rural programs with regard to the risk of deforestation. Second, at regional level in the states of Chiapas and Yucatan, we describe the changing policy agenda and the role of technical intermediaries in defining the temporal spatialization of the PSA-H eligible and enrolled areas with regard to key socio-economic criteria. We find that, although at national level the PSA-H program has been described as coping with both social and environmental indicators thanks to successful adaptive management, our analysis show that PSA-H is mainly found in communities where deforestation risk is low and in combination with other environmental programs (protected areas and forest management programs). Such inertia is reinforced at regional level as a result of the eligible areas’ characteristics and the behaviour of technical intermediaries, which seek to minimise transaction costs and sources of uncertainty. Our project-specific analysis shows the importance of integrating the governance of a program in the policyscape framework as a way to better systematize complex interactions at different spatial and institutional scales between policies and landscape characteristics.

Payments for ecosystem services and conditional cash transfers in a policy mix: Microlevel interactions in Selva Lacandona, Mexico

“…Yet, there is scant evidence on PES' interactions with poverty alleviation policies, particularly at the micro level. In Mexico, Ezzine‐de‐Blas, Dutilly, et al () show that a high percentage of PES enrolled lands in Chiapas coincided with high poverty levels, which resonates with previous nation‐wide findings (Muñoz‐Piña et al, ), but the extent of PES' overlap with poverty alleviation policies is unknown.…”

“…Indeed, the existence of a widespread environment‐poverty nexus across the Global South—that is, “poor” populations often inhabit forested regions (Dasgupta, )—helps explain why there has been so much discussion around PES' prospects for reducing poverty (Bulte, Lipper, Stringer, & Zilberman, ; Muradian et al, ; Wunder, ). In Mexico there is only anecdotal evidence that people in rural contexts jointly participate in PES and CCT (Izquierdo‐Tort, ; Zabala, ), but there is much scope for spatial overlap because a large percentage of PES participants are identified as highly marginalized (Ezzine‐de‐Blas, Dutilly, Lara‐Pulido, Le Velly, & Guevara‐Sanginés, ; Muñoz‐Piña, Guevara, Torres, & Braña, ), which is the targeting criterion for CCT.…”

“…Further, though Rodríguez et al () suggest that PES and CCT have similar designs but otherwise pursue different goals, several “hybrid” cash transfer programs that combine social protection and environmental conservation goals over the same geographical scales are already being tested worldwide (Porras & Asquith, , ). Indeed, the Mexican state‐led PES programs studied here explicitly pursue poverty alleviation goals using “pro‐poor” targeting rules (Ezzine‐de‐Blas, Dutilly, et al, ; Muñoz‐Piña et al, ; Sims et al, ). A mounting body of PES scholarship has highlighted the need to consider the type of goals that are pursued by CCT, such as poverty reduction and equitable and fair distribution, as intrinsic components of the PES agenda (Menton & Bennett, ; Muradian, Corbera, Pascual, Kosoy, & May, ; Pascual et al, ; Pascual, Muradian, Rodríguez, & Duraiappah, ).…”

Analyzing multilevel governance in Mexico: Lessons for REDD+ from a study of land-use change and benefit sharing in Chiapas and Yucatán

“…Pressure from producer organizations influenced the design of the program, favoring ejidos and communities over private property and increasing the payments per hectare. As the program grew significantly during the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012), it gradually responded more to a poverty alleviation agenda than to strict environmental criteria (McAfee and Shapiro 2010;Alix-García et al 2012 ;Cameron 2015;Ezzine-de-Blas et al 2016). 28 When CONAFOR started to renew the first 5-year PES contracts in 2008, it became clear that the scheme was turning into, and being perceived as, another federal subsidy, a "PROCAMPO forestal" as one interviewee stated, in reference to the agricultural subsidy paid out to maize farmers.…”

“…As the president of an 28 According to Cameron (2015: 16), deforestation risk was only one criteria amongst many that was considered by CONAFOR and represented less than 10% of the final evaluation. Ezzine-de-Blas et al (2016) state that in 2010, CONAFOR used 26 different criteria to determine which properties would receive PES.…”