Content uploaded by Nelson Grima
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Nelson Grima on Feb 02, 2018
Content may be subject to copyright.
Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Latin America: Analysing the
performance of 40 case studies
Nelson Grima
a,
n
, Simron J. Singh
a,b
, Barbara Smetschka
a
, Lisa Ringhofer
a
a
Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria University, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria
b
University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1
article info
Article history:
Received 27 March 2015
Received in revised form
10 November 2015
Accepted 12 November 2015
Keywords:
Ecosystem services
Payment for Ecosystem Services
Latin America
PES performance
Case studies
abstract
Market instruments such as Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) emerged as a concept to compensate
and encourage landowners to improve land management practices for the maintenance and provision of
ecosystem services. Since the early 1990s hundreds of PES schemes have been implemented around the
world with varying levels of success. The high investments required to implement such schemes, and the
stakes involved, argue for an analysis of PES cases to determine factors that contribute to a particular
outcome. The paper analyses 40 PES cases in Latin America providing insights that will inform policy and
decision makers in designing future PES initiatives with higher chances of success. In this study we
analyse each case using a set of criteria (related to ecosystem type, compensation package and incentives,
spatial and temporal scales, institutional arrangements, and policy frameworks) to determine those most
important for a particular outcome. These insights provide information on programme factors that
contribute to the potential for success of a given PES scheme. Although this classification can be further
improved, it provides a useful reference for decision-makers on what might be considered best practice
on the ground concerning PES schemes.
&2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Building on earlier works that emphasised human dependence
on nature's services (Braat et al., 1979;King, 1966;Odum and
Odum, 1972), the term “ecosystem services”was first introduced
by Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981). The concept was originally meant to
raise public interest and to establish a framework to highlight the
social benefits of ecosystem conservation as the rate of loss of
biodiversity was becoming increasingly evident (de Groot, 1987;
Pimentel, 1980;Westman, 1977). Since the 1990s, the concept of
ecosystem services became the focal point of several research
programmes and publications (Daily, 1997;Perrings et al., 1992). In
particular, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005)
was crucial to show the relationship between ecosystem services
and human well-being. Follow-up international initiatives such as
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity –TEEB (http://
www.teebweb.org/ –last accessed 09.03.2015), the Intergovern-
mental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services –IPBES (http://www.ipbes.net/ –last accessed
09.03.2015) and the Ecosystem Services Partnership –ESP (http://
www.es-partnership.org –last accessed 09.03.2015) have brought
the concept to centre stage of global environmental change re-
search, and right into the green economy discussions in Rioþ20.
Following the publication in Nature by Costanza et al. (1997)
where the economic value of the world's ecosystem services was
first estimated, there has been a tendency to further refine eco-
nomic valuation methods (Kumar, 2012) as well as putting new
economic values on ecosystem services (e.g. Costanza et al. (2014)
and de Groot et al. (2012)). While precise motivations for such
calculations may differ, a common goal is to address the global
environmental challenge by making ecosystem and biodiversity
loss visible through monetisation using a holistic cost-benefit
analysis. On the one hand this has inspired awareness to conserve
nature, on the other hand this has also been used to argue to
embed environmental externalities into economic pricing of
goods. As Gomez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Perez (2011) state, the idea
of this approach is to correct a market failure, by internalising
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser
Ecosystem Services
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2015.11.010
2212-0416/&2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Abbreviations: COP, Conference of the Parties; FUNDAECO, Fundación para el
Ecodesarrollo y la Conservación (Foundation for Eco-development and Conserva-
tion); MEA, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; MES, Markets for Ecosystem Ser-
vices; NGOs, Non-Governmental Organizations; PES, Payment for Ecosystem Ser-
vices; TEEB, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity; UN, United Nations;
UNDP, United National Development Programme; UNFCCC, United Nations Fra-
mework Convention on Climate Change; USA, United States of America; NKMCAP,
Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project; LEHP, La Esperanza Hydroelectric
Power Company; RISEMP, Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Manage-
ment Project; PSA, Payments for Environmental Services PROFAFOR; PSAH, Pay-
ments for Hydrological Environmental Services; BR, Biosphere Reserve
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: nelson.grimaliria@aau.at (N. Grima).
Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–32
environmental externalities (hitherto free public goods such as air
and water) into the market prices.
The two key market instruments that currently exist are: the
Markets for Ecosystem Services (MES –based on the polluter pays
principle) that address negative environmental externalities, and
the Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) or “steward earns
principle”, based on positive environmental externalities (ibid.).
The central idea of PES is that the stewards of the ecosystem
services should be compensated by those who benefit. For ex-
ample, good land management practices should bring benefits to
landowners upstream (e.g. farmers) by users downstream (e.g. city
dwellers). Similarly, the industrial societies reliant on burning
fossil fuels should compensate forest dwelling communities (e.g.
living in the Amazon) for protecting the rainforests as these pro-
vide carbon sequestration functions and thereby serve to stabilise
the global climate. While rudimentary forms of PES have existed
for decades, the widespread expansion of PES as an integrated
conservation and development mechanism began to emerge only
in the 1990s (Wunder et al., 2008).
1
PES schemes are not without
criticism. Besides the general criticism that economic pricing of
nature is unethical (Martinez-Alier, 1987;McCauley, 2006;Pe-
terson et al., 2010), the technical implementation of PES schemes
has also received widespread criticism (i.e. Schröter et al. (2014)
and Simpson (2011)).
Despite the criticism, today, hundreds of PES schemes (mostly
local level arrangements) are being implemented around the
world (Perevochtchikova and Oggioni, 2014) covering four main
ecosystem services: biodiversity conservation, watershed services,
carbon sequestration and landscape beauty (Arriagada and Per-
rings, 2013).
Some studies have attempted to evaluate the performance of
PES schemes on the ground, but each with its own limitations (see
Section 2 for a review). This paper is an effort to contribute to the
ongoing discussion on PES performance drawing on 40 PES cases
in Latin America, a region that has pioneered PES but has not yet
been comprehensively analysed, barring a few cases here and
there. We begin with a brief review of the key literature in this
field, we introduce the cases and the method used followed by
discussion and analysis.
2. State-of-the art in assessing PES performance
Following the increasing popularity of the PES concept to ad-
dress social and environmental challenges, few authors have made
efforts to evaluate the performance of PES on the ground. The aim
of these studies were not always about the success or failures of
the PES schemes, but often on the process and identification of
relevant factors that determined outcomes. Sometimes the focus
was on analysing the equity implications of PES schemes dedi-
cated to specific services. For example, Corbera et al. (2007) ana-
lysed several cases in Mesoamerica related to the provision of
carbon and water services with respect to distribution of benefits.
Swallow et al. (2010) compared five cases from Latin America, Asia,
and Africa against a set of criteria to understand whether PES
schemes altered institutional arrangements in the region.
Trying to provide a broader view of PES performance, Arriagada
and Perrings (2013) undertook an analysis of several cases from
Latin America, Asia, and Africa. However, their study was focused
not on evaluating the success of the PES schemes, but on technical
efficiency. In this work, the authors assigned an efficiency index to
each one of the cases, based on a cost benefit analysis, the “ad-
ditionality”of the scheme as an outcome, and three design criteria
(participants, ecosystem service, and penalties).
In 2013, Martin-Ortega et al. (2013) published a study where
they analysed 40 cases in Latin America. The study is a compara-
tive analysis of implemented cases across a set of criteria to un-
derstand the process of implementation on the ground and the
constraints faced. Although this is a comprehensive study, it is
focused solely on cases related to the provision of water as the
ecosystem service being traded. Thus, the choice of criteria was
specific to the provisioning of water as an ecosystem service.
By far the most comprehensive assessment of PES performance
that took into account several ecosystem services provided was
done by Sattler et al. (2013). In their work, the authors discuss
when and under what circumstances the implementation of PES
schemes would generate benefit, and how these programmes
could be improved. They provide information from actual PES
schemes in Germany and the USA, relating the characteristics of
those PES schemes to their overall success. However, their classi-
fication is not well-suited to a developing country context where
information is limited and so not all criteria can be satisfied.
The few studies that exist on PES performance, all used sec-
ondary sources of information for their analysis for comparing the
cases across a set of criteria as established by the authors. The
criteria is almost always contingent on the goal of the analysis.
Often the studies focus only on one ecosystem service with a
particular interest in a single aspect of a scheme. What is lacking is
an interest in the wider system performance using a set of inter-
related social and environmental criteria. Thus, the goal of this
study is to take a broader view in understanding the preconditions
and criteria contributing to the different degrees of success of PES
schemes. We not only take into account multiple ecosystem ser-
vices, but also a more suited set of criteria to capture the social and
environmental dimensions of the PES case.
3. Methods
Analysis of published PES cases was the primary data source for
this study. The data was gathered using computerised searches
(through Google Scholar and ScienceDirect search engines). The
search terms used were “Payment for Ecosystem Services”,“PES”,
“PES implementation”,“PES project”,“PES report”, and “PES case
study”. We focused on published peer reviewed journal articles
and research reports on PES from 1990 onwards. This resulted in a
PES database of 140 PES cases from across the world. Three-
fourths of the cases in this initial list were from developing or
transition economies. As suspected, Latin America featured pro-
minent in PES studies with 60 cases, but with no comprehensive
comparative analysis of these cases. Of these 60 cases, 40 cases
carried information related to the criteria we developed for our
comparative analysis (ecosystem services being traded, criteria
related to spatial and temporal scales, transaction types, and actors
involved). Also, an important condition in our selection was that
the PES scheme should already be implemented (or in progress)
and there should be available at least one comprehensive eva-
luation report on the project. Table 1 shows the sources of in-
formation for the 40 cases selected.
Our analysis used a limited set of criteria from the ones ori-
ginally proposed by Sattler et al. (2013) due to data limitations. As
mentioned previously the cases used by Sattler et al. (2013) were
from a developed country context for which more documentation
was available. In contrast, this was not the case for Latin America.
Hence, certain criteria were eliminated for which there was little
or no information available. Despite this, we were still able to
retain the most important criteria for our purpose, and therefore
1
Costa Rica pioneered formal PES schemes at the national scale in 1997 that
offered US$45 per hectare to land owners willing to maintain forest covers on their
land, which reversed deforestation trends of the time (Pagiola, 2008).
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–32 25
not compromise the quality of the analysis.
2
A large number of scientific publications report on successful or
partially successful PES cases, not so much on those that were not
successful. However, our analysis was not intended to report on
the overall percentage of successful PES cases as against un-
successful ones, rather to understand the preconditions and cri-
teria for varying degrees of success. The reports found were a mix
of internal evaluations, but also analysis made by third parties. A
full list of the 40 cases analysed is found in Table 2.
Once the cases were selected, the next step was to assess the
degree of success for each of the cases. Although “success”of PES
is mentioned in several studies (i.e. Corbera et al. (2009,2007),
Pagiola (2008) and Perevochtchikova and Oggioni (2014)), no clear
and consistent definition was found in most of them. The most
precise definition we found was attempted by Sattler et al. (2013)
that was based on effectiveness and efficiency, or on acceptance
and uptake of the schemes, or on other democracy-related criteria
such as legitimacy and transparency. Our intention in this study
was to provide a common definition of success for all our analysed
cases. We defined “success”as a combination of (a) the extent to
which the original or defined goals of the PES scheme were met,
and (b) the added value in terms of an overall improvement of the
ecological, economic and social conditions of the region, beyond
intended objectives. For example, if a particular PES scheme had
the defined goal to improve water quality in the area, but as an
outcome, the scheme not only succeeded in achieving this, but
also indirectly contributed to improvements in human health.
Partially successful PES schemes were those where the key ob-
jectives were met, but which also resulted in unintended con-
sequences such as social conflicts or trade-offs with other eco-
system services. Unsuccessful cases were clearly those that not
only failed to meet original objectives but had further compro-
mised the ecosystem service, the economy or social well-being.
The assessment for each case, whether successful, partially suc-
cessful or unsuccessful, was made on the basis of the qualitative
information provided for each case. In some cases, where possible,
the information was cross-checked with other sources such as
further publications, reports or websites of organizations involved.
In order to assess the degree of success, the qualitative in-
formation from the literature regarding the outcomes of each case
was listed and compared against the criteria specified in the de-
finition of success (meeting of originally defined goals, improve-
ment of ecological conditions of the region beyond intended goals,
improvement of economic conditions of the region beyond in-
tended goals, and improvement of social conditions of the region
beyond intended goals). This comparison allowed to classify each
PES scheme into one of the three categories defined (successful,
partially successful, and not successful).
After success was determined for each case, we analysed and
searched for patterns inherent in the original design and im-
plementation process of the PES schemes. Both quantitative and
qualitative values of each PES case from their individual evaluation
reports or studies were distilled. The information derived was then
plotted on a spreadsheet against a set of criteria we decided upon
with possible options usually found in the PES cases (see Table 3).
It is important to note that the criteria used in the study were not
used to measure “success”, rather the criteria looks into the design
and characteristics of PES schemes to search for patterns on
commonalities for successful and not successful cases.
The first criteria identified the ecosystem services being traded.
In recent scientific literature, ecosystem services are classified as
provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services (after
MEA (2005)). However, when it comes to PES, ecosystem services
focus on four categories: biodiversity, landscape, water, and carbon
(Wunder, 2007). The two classifications are not in contradiction.
Biodiversity conservation (through species and habitat protection)
directly relate to provisioning and supporting services; landscape
protection of scenic value for tourism relates to cultural services;
improvement of water quality and quantity links to provisioning
services; while avoiding carbon emissions or increasing carbon
sequestration relates to regulating services. “Bundled”services
refers to transactions where multiple ecosystem services are
considered in the PES arrangement.
Our second criteria concerned scale, following the indications
of Kinzig et al. (2011) and Sattler et al. (2013), which specified that
scales in space and time must be taken into consideration when
analysing PES implementation since they influence the outcome.
In terms of spatial scale, although the provision of ecosystem
services can have impacts and benefits at the global level, the
three levels used in our classification (national, regional and local)
referred to the land area the scheme was formally targeting.
For the temporal scale, the duration of the scheme corre-
sponded to the time periods for which funding for the scheme was
available. Schemes for which funding was longer than 30 years
were classified as long-term, those between 10 and 30 years were
classified as mid-term, and those for which the funding was lim-
ited to 10 years and less were classified as short-term.
The third criteria referred to the form of compensation that
stewards of ecosystem services received from the buyers. The aim
of this criterion was to identify whether the type of compensation
provided to the sellers were cash payments, in-kind compensa-
tions, or a combination of both. Cash payments implied a direct
monetary flow, while in-kind compensations could be goods and
services delivered to the stewards without the involvement of
money.
The last criteria in comparing PES cases reported on the actors
involved (buyers, sellers and intermediaries of the PES scheme),
whether these were public or private. “Public”would be govern-
ment (national or local), or government agencies, while private
would include landowners, farmers, private companies, NGOs, or
individuals such as tourists who through their fees financed the
maintenance of a given landscape or an ecosystem. Buyers were
the beneficiaries of the ecosystem service, while sellers were the
providers of such services and although they could be public en-
tities, they were typically private landowners or land users who
carried on management activities that ensured the continuous
provision of the ecosystem services being traded.
This criterion also indicated whether in the process there were
intermediaries involved or not. They could be public or private
entities or organizations acting as mediators between buyers and
sellers. Intermediaries could also take on administrative tasks
Table 1
Literature sources for the 40 cases selected.
Literature source Number of cases
Journals:
Ecological Economics 11
Forests 1
Investigación agraria: Sistemas y recursos forestales 1
Global Environmental Change 1
Environmental Policy and Law 1
Ecosystem Services 1
Research reports:
TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity 13
International Institute for Environment and Development 2
CIFOR: Center for International Forestry Research 8
International Center for Tropical Agriculture 1
2
The justification and relevance of each criterion has been explained in Sattler
et al. (2013) but also discussed under methods below.
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–3226
regarding the payments, counselling during the negotiations,
monitoring of the land management activities, verification of the
ecosystem service provision, among others.
4. Results
Of the 40 cases, based on our assessment of success, 23 cases
were classified as successful, 12 as partially successful, and 5 as not
successful. Accordingly, these cases were arranged in an excel file,
each plotted against every one of our defined criteria to produce a
statistical outcome on how often a certain option was repeated.
The pie charts in Fig. 1 show the distribution of PES cases showing
the distribution of factors that contribute to a certain outcome.
Fig. 1(a) shows that half of the cases studied have water as a key
ecosystem service traded. Bundled services comprise 28% in our
sampled PES studies. In other words, these schemes do not focus
on only one ecosystem service but they aim to enhance the pro-
vision of different ecosystem services at the same time. The focus
and share of the remaining three ecosystem services are as fol-
lows: landscape protection (12%), maintaining carbon stocks (8%),
and biodiversity protection (2%).
With respect to scale, 60% of the studied cases are found to be
implemented at local scales (Fig. 1b) whereas 30% at regional and
only 10% at national level. In terms of time scale, 65% of the cases
are funded for over 30 years and 10% of the cases have secured
funding for a time frame between 10 and 30 years. Cases with less
than 10 years of funding comprise 25% of our sample (Fig. 1c).
Table 2
List of studied cases.
Num Programme name Location Starting year Funding References
1–Los Negros (Bolivia) 2003 Public Asquith et al. (2008),Ringhofer et al. (2013),Robertson and
Wunder (2005) and Wunder et al. (2008)
2 NKMCAP Noel Kempff National Park (Bolivia) 1997 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
3 Siembra del agua La Aguada (Bolivia) 1993 Public Robertson and Wunder (2005)
4 Chalalán Ecolodge San José de Uchupiamonas (Bolivia) 1998 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
5 Mapajo Indigenous
Ecoturism
Pilón Lajas Indigenous Territory and
BR (Bolivia)
1999 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
6 La Chonta ecoturism
initiative
La Chonta (Bolivia) 1998 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
7 La Yunga ecoturism
initiative
La Yunga (Bolivia) 2001 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
8–Eduardo Avaroa Reserve (Bolivia) 1999 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
9–Buena Vista (Bolivia) 2003 Private Robertson and Wunder (2005)
10 –Comarapa (Bolivia) 2007 Publicþprivate Greiber (2009)
11 Rubber-tappers State of Acre (Brazil) 1998 Private Kugel and Jha (2013)
12 Bolsa Floresta State of Amazonas (Brazil) 2007 Public þprivate Cassola (2010a) and Ringhofer et al. (2013)
13 –Extrema-Minas Gerais (Brazil) 2005 Public Cassola (2010b)
14 –Juma (Brazil) 2006 Publicþprivate Börner et al. (2010) and Ringhofer et al. (2013)
15 Transamazon Brazil 2013 Public Cromberg et al. (2014) and Duchelle et al. (2014)
16 –Fuquene (Colombia) 2004 Public Greiber (2009) and Tognetti and Johnson (2008)
17 Plan Verde Colombia 1999 Public Porras et al. (2008)
18 –Nima Watershed (Colombia) 2000 Publicþprivate Rodriguez-de-Francisco and Budds (2014)
19 –Asobolo (Colombia) 1993 Private Muñoz Escobar et al. (2013)
20 RISEMP Quindío (Colombia) 2002 Public Pagiola and Arcenas (2013)
21 –Valle del Cauca (Colombia) 1990 Private Goldman et al. (2010)
22 Procuencas Heredia province (Costa Rica) 2000 Private Redondo-Brenes and Welsh (2010)
23 PSA Costa Rica 1997 Public Ringhofer et al. (2013) and Wunder et al. (2008)
24 RISEMP Esparza (Costa Rica) 2002 Public Pagiola and Arcenas (2013)
25 –Heredia (Costa Rica) 20 02 Public Kosoy et al. (2007)
26 LEHP PES La Esperanza (Costa Rica) 1998 Private Porras (2010)
27 –Quito (Ecuador) 2004 Publicþprivate Arias et al. (2010)
28 –Pimampiro (Ecuador) 2000 Private Wunder et al. (2008)
29 PROFAFOR Ecuador 1993 Private Wunder et al. (2008)
30 –Ecuadorian Chocó (Ecuador) 2005 Publicþprivate Kosmus et al. (2012)
31 –Celica (Ecuador) 2006 Private Cordero Camacho (2008) and Corporación Andina de Fomento
(2008)
32 –Cuenca (Ecuador) 1997 Private Porras and Neves (2006)
33 –Las Escobas (Guatemala) 1998 Private Corbera et al. (2007)
34 –Jesús de Otroro (Honduras) 2001 Public Kosoy et al. (2007)
35 PSAH Mexico 2003 Public Ringhofer et al. (2013) and Wunder et al. (2008)
36 –La Sepultura BR (Mexico) 2004 Public Rico Garcia-Amado et al. (2013)
37 RISEMP Matiguás –Río Blanco (Nicaragua) 2002 Public Pagiola and Arcenas (2013)
38 San Pedro del Norte (Nicaragua) 2003 Public Kosoy et al. (2007)
39 –Gil González watershed (Nicaragua) 2008 Publicþprivate Hack et al. (2010)
40 –Moyobamba (Peru) 20 07 Public Renner (2010)
Table 3
Criteria used to analyse the PES cases in Latin America.
Criteria Options
1. Ecosystem services being traded [Biodiversity; landscape; water; carbon;
bundled]
2. Scale
Spatial [National; regional; local]
Temporal [Long-term; mid-term; short-term]
3. Transaction types [Cash; in-kind; both cash and in-kind]
4. Actors involved
Buyer [Private; public; both public and private]
Seller [Private; public]
Intermediaries [Yes; no]
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–32 27
For options related to actors involved, there are almost the
same number of cases with private (45%) as with public (38%)
buyers, leaving only 17% of cases with a mix of private and public
buyers (Fig. 1d). In terms of sellers, almost all cases have a private
seller at 95% (Fig. 1e) and more than half have intermediaries in-
volved (Fig. 1f).
Fig. 1(g) shows that the number of cases that have a mix of cash
and in-kind compensations are almost equal to the cases with only
cash payments, at 40% and 42% respectively, while 18% of the cases
are compensated with only in-kind contributions. As Table 3 be-
low shows, these in-kind compensations are represented in de-
creasing order of abundance by community projects, technical
assistance, materials and infrastructure, education and health
programmes, training courses, and finally one only case involving
micro-credits.
Table 4 gives an overview on the cases analysed across each
attribute or criteria. This allows us to identify criteria that seem to
have most influence on the success of a PES scheme. In other
words, the percentage of schemes that are classified as successful
for each option of the different criteria provide an indication of
how positive an option is in order to obtain good final results for
the different schemes included in the analysed sample. The gra-
phical representation of this table is shown in Fig. 2.
5. Discussion: what characterises a successful PES scheme?
Of the 40 cases analysed, as stated in the previous section, 23
are classified as successful, 12 as partially successful, and 5 as not
successful. In this section we will go through the criteria we used
previously (Fig. 1 and Table 3) to highlight the key factors that
contributed to such outcomes. In other words, which aspects
played an important role in the success of a PES scheme? Fig. 2
summarises the factors that enhances the degree of success of the
analysed PES schemes. The length of petals represents the per-
centage of schemes classified as successful in our sample.
5.1. Ecosystem services being traded
From the schemes analysed, those that secure the continued
provisioning and quality of a critical resource that positively con-
tribute to local livelihoods and wellbeing are rather successful.
Water is a pressed commodity and watershed protection is rapidly
becoming the most important of the four types of payments for
ecosystem services in Latin America. This might be because in-
creasing water shortages in areas of high consumption have trig-
gered the search for alternative ways to enhance supply (South-
gate and Wunder, 2009). For example, the Quito water fund (Arias
et al., 2010) in Ecuador that was established with the aim of im-
proving the quality of water to provide for the city of Quito has
proved rather successful. In this case community development and
the improvement of local livelihoods as well as access (through
preservation) to critical resources was seen as important to its
success. This combination of livelihood improvement together
with the provision of a critical resource (such as water and timber)
is an important driver of the success of PES schemes, also in other
regions of the world, for example in South Africa, where the suc-
cess of a PES scheme is “largely attributed to it being mainly
funded as a poverty-relief initiative, although water users also
contribute through their water fees”(Turpie et al., 2008).
5.2. Spatial scale
Most of the PES schemes analysed were implemented at a re-
gional or local scales, with more than half of the cases being
successful on both these scales. The local and regional scales allow
communities to better identify with actors and intermediaries and
also for joint monitoring of costs and benefits. For example, the
Fig. 1. Distribution of PES cases across criteria showing the distribution of factors in the design of the 40 PES cases.
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–3228
case of Chalalán Ecolodge in Bolivia (Robertson and Wunder, 2005)
was implemented in a reduced area comprising the Chalalán vil-
lage and its surroundings. The scheme had virtually the entire
community participating, from design, implementation, monitor-
ing and they were the sole beneficiaries of the outcomes in the
form of revenues from tourism. As an example of a scheme im-
plemented at regional level, the case of the rubber-tappers in the
State of Acre in Brazil provided benefits for an estimated 20,000
people by way of increased public services that were made pos-
sible by people's active participation to enhance biodiversity and
carbon stocks in the region (Kugel and Jha, 2013). This character-
istic matches with the explanations of (Singh and Dudley, 2010),
where they described how working at local scale has the potential
to provide advisory services, support investments creating in-
centives for maintaining ecosystem services, and enhance co-
ordination through collective action. It is also supported by Cor-
bera et al. (2009) who state that for PES schemes related to the
maintenance of the natural resource base (i.e. biodiversity, water,
etc.) the implementation at a local or regional scale is more effi-
cient than at national scale. Not sufficient cases implemented at
national scale have been found to clearly understand the influence
of this scale to the success of the PES scheme.
5.3. Temporal scale
In our sample, the sustained financing for mid- and long-term
planning and engagement contributed to a high level of success
Other authors (i.e. Corbera et al. (2009) and Perrot-Maitre (2006))
have as well highlighted the importance of the mid- and long-
term temporal scales. This time frame is also supported by UNDP
(2011) who after examining several case studies makes a clear case
for a 10–20 years donor commitment for transformational change.
This time frame is particularly relevant for putting in place sus-
tainable management regimes and behaviour change with respect
to the use of natural resources. A good example of this mid-term
planning is the case of Procuencas in Costa Rica (Redondo-Brenes
and Welsh, 2010), a PES scheme used as a model in other regions
of the world, and the financial mechanism of which, was adopted
by the Costa Rican government to apply it at national level. An-
other example is the case of Chocó in Ecuador (Kosmus et al.,
2012), a region of global conservation importance where the mid-
term time frame led to the maintenance of biodiversity, a devel-
opment of local actors thanks to the social programmes involved
in the scheme, and the strengthening of local organisational
structures, local skills and land use tenure and rights.
Table 4
Classification of the PES schemes analysed.
Criteria Option NSuccessful Partially successful Not successful % Successful % Not successful
1. Ecosystem services being traded Biodiversity 1 1 0 0 100 0
Landscape 5 3 2 0 60 0
Water 20 10 8 2 50 10
Carbon 3 2 0 1 67 33
Bundled 11 7 2 2 64 18
2. Scale
Spatial National 4 0 3 1 0 25
Regional 12 7 4 1 58 8
Local 24 16 5 3 67 13
Temporal Long-term (430 years) 26 15 7 4 58 15
Mid-term (10–30 years) 4 3 1 0 75 0
Short-term (o10 years) 10 5 4 1 50 10
3. Transaction types Cash 17 11 3 3 65 18
In-kind 7 3 4 0 43 0
Cash and in-kind 16 9 5 2 56 13
When in-kind compensation
a
Not specified 3 2 1 0 67 0
Materials/infrastructure 6 3 3 0 50 0
Education and health 2 0 2 0 0 0
Community projects 9 4 3 2 44 22
Technical assistance 6 4 2 0 67 0
Micro-credits 1 0 0 1 0 100
Training courses 2 1 1 0 50 0
4. Actors involved
Buyer Private 18 12 4 2 67 11
Public 15 7 6 2 47 13
Public and private 7 4 2 1 57 14
Seller Private 38 23 11 4 61 11
Public 2 0 1 1 0 50
Intermediaries Yes 26 13 9 4 5 0 15
No 14 10 3 1 7 1 7
nn
Criteria refers to the criteria used for the comparative analysis; Option refers to the possible choices included in each of the criteria; Nrefers to the number of cases that fall
under each criteria and option, the sum total of cases for each criterion being 40; Successful refers to the number of cases for each option classified as successful; Partially
successful refers to the number of cases classified as not being completely successful but not being completely unsuccessful either; Not successful refers to the number of cases
for each option classified as not successful; % Successful refers to the percentage of the successful cases with respect to the total number of cases across options and criteria; %
Not successful refers to the percentage of the not successful cases with respect to the total number of cases across options and criteria.
a
The total number of in-kind contributions (29) is higher than the total number of schemes providing in-kind contributions (23) because some schemes provided more
than one type of in-kind contribution.
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–32 29
5.4. Transaction types
In our sample, cases with only in-kind contributions had quite
some degrees of success as compared to only cash or a combina-
tion of cash and in-kind where respectively 18% and 13% were not
successful. Supporting this finding, the literature shows that dif-
ferent authors emphasise the advantages of using in-kind con-
tributions rather than only cash payments. For example, there are
the risks identified by (Vatn et al., 2014) where distribution of cash
payments among providers can be unfair, and to the development
of corrupt practices linked to cash. In addition, (Jindal et al., 2008)
state that in-kind payments help avoiding cases of corruption and
unfair distribution of benefits due to the indivisible nature of the
payments and the benefits for all the community. However, Porras
et al. (2008) argue that in-kind payments once implemented lead
to low conditionality attached to the payment to maintain a par-
ticular ecosystem service. In other words, in the case of in-kind
contributions, sanctions are more difficult to apply. For example, a
road once built as part of a PES arrangement is not likely to be
removed even if the community fails to honour their share of the
commitment afterwards. Nevertheless, this has often not been the
case. On the contrary, the fact that the buyer of the ecosystem
service actually fulfils the agreement helps in trust building and
ensures commitment of the community as well. In terms of in-
kind contributions, most valued in our sample are community
infrastructure projects (roads, electricity, telecommunication, etc.)
and services such as education, health and technical support as in
the Colombian case of Asobolo (Muñoz Escobar et al., 2013) or the
Ecuadorian case of Chocó (Kosmus et al., 2012). Provision of ma-
terials (such as fences, tools and seedlings) as in the Gil Gonzalez
case in Nicaragua are also of importance (Hack et al., 2010)asare
capacity building through trainings such as beekeeping or organic
farming as in the cases of Los Negros in Bolivia (Asquith et al.,
2008), Moyobamba in Peru (Renner, 2010) and PROFAFOR in
Ecuador (Wunder et al., 2008).
5.5. Actors involved
In our sample, we found the degree of success to be high where
most sellers were private entities (which also includes collectives
such as NGO's and associations).
3
An example worth mentioning is
the simple case of Robin Clark and his neighbour (Robertson and
Wunder, 2005), where two individuals in Bolivia directly arranged
with each other a direct payment for the preservation of a small
sized forest. Another example of this characteristic is the more
complex case of Procuencas (Redondo-Brenes and Welsh, 2010)in
Costa Rica, where a private company directly paid upstream
landowners for the adoption of practices that preserve the quality
of the water. This preference for the involvement of private actors
follows the Coase theorem as a means to solve environmental
externalities. The theorem states that the best way to overcome
these externalities is through private negotiations (Schomers and
Matzdorf, 2013). Also, Arriagada and Perrings (2013) state that
“user-financed programmes are generally more efficient than
government-funded programmes”. Further, cases with no inter-
mediaries had a higher degree of success than with those that had
intermediaries. Trust is an important aspect in PES schemes, and
when local communities are confronted with actors estranged
from the local context, chances of failure are higher (Asquith et al.,
Fig. 2. Characteristics related to the potential of a PES scheme to be successful.
3
Since the number of cases with public actors was low, it would be worth
analysing more cases with public sector engagement for a definitive outcome.
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–3230
2008;Robertson and Wunder, 2005;Wunder et al., 2008).
6. Conclusions
In this paper we made an attempt to understand the perfor-
mance of PES schemes in Latin America using a set of criteria to
identify those critical for PES success. Building on 40 PES cases,
this study offers the first comparative analysis using a wide range
of criteria for a region that has pioneered PES from the 1990s. The
key messages around what contributes to a successful PES can be
summarised as follows:
(a) Ecosystem services being traded: PES schemes that secure
the continued provisioning and quality of a critical resource while
positively contributing to local livelihoods are quite successful.
(b) Scale: Local and regional scales are the most widely used,
both with high degrees of success. Concerning the optimal time
frame, projects operating within a period between 10–30 years,
are regarded as most successful.
(c) Transaction types: The use of in-kind contributions reduce
the probability of failure. Those transactions are preferable rather
than using only cash payments.
(d) Actors involved: There is a dominance of successful PES
schemes where mostly private actors are involved. Also, schemes
with no intermediaries between the buyers and the sellers tend to
be more successful.
While our study focussed only on what contributes to PES
success, we did also observe that the cases with low degrees of
success had certain common features. While a full discussion on
this is outside the scope of this paper, it might be worth to briefly
mention some of them: that the implementations of the PES
schemes did not manage to reduce the pressures on the ecosys-
tem; that the investors did not see the added value of their in-
vestments (additionality was not achieved); that the opportunity
costs were not met; that the local livelihoods did not improve;
existing land rights arrangements and power structures were
threatened; and where unfair practices in the distribution of
benefits were observed. Further research on an analysis focused on
the factors characterising low degrees of success for PES schemes
would complement the present study and contribute to the better
understanding of design successful PES schemes in the future.
Methodologically, we argue that the classification used for the
40 cases across a set of criteria has proved to be rather efficient in
understanding PES performance. However, we only looked at how
often each option (within each criteria) was repeated, but not the
causal relations between the various options. We also do not know
how changing combinations of options would affect the outcome.
For example, what would be the outcome of a PES scheme that is
designed at a national level to protect a landscape of national
importance, where sellers are both private and public, applied for
a period of 10 years, and where the transaction is made in cash?
Also, the use of statistical correlation methods added to the clas-
sification methods described in this work, would increase the
understanding of the influence of certain aspects in the con-
tributing to success of PES schemes. Clearly, more in-depth ana-
lysis is needed, and other methods are required to understand the
interaction between criteria for a fuller understanding of PES
dynamics.
PES programmes are expected to reconcile human well-being
and ecosystem conservation. Despite the critiques they face, they
are constantly adapting and evolving. Timely input from previous
experiences into PES policies and schemes are much needed for
their success. This work is a contribution to that effort, although
further research is still needed. Since cultural and political con-
texts play important roles in successful PES schemes, it is im-
portant to conduct similar analyses on PES experiences in other
geographical areas (i.e. South East Asia, Africa, etc.). Moreover,
synergy between PES schemes and development projects aimed at
poverty eradication should be explored, and in effect how they can
contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda.
Efforts in this direction have already begun (Ringhofer et al.,
Submitted for publication).
Acknowledgements
The research leading to these results has received funding from
the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-
2013) under Grant Agreement no. 283093 –The Role Of Biodi-
versity In climate change mitigatioN (ROBIN).
References
Arias, V., Benitez, S., Goldman, R., 2010. TEEBcase: Water Fund for Catchment
Management. TEEB, Ecuador.
Arriagada, R., Perrings, C., 2013. Making payments for ecosystem services work. In:
Kumar, P., Thiaw I., Barker, T (Eds.), Values, Payments and Institutions for
Ecosystem Management: A Developing Country Perspective. Edward Elgar
Publishing Cheltenham, UK.
Asquith, N.M., Vargas, M.T., Wunder, S., 2008. Selling two environmental services:
in-kind payments for bird habitat and watershed protection in Los Negros,
Bolivia. Ecol. Econ. 65, 675–684.
Börner, J., Wunder, S., Wertz-Kanounnokoff, S., Tito, M.R., Pereira, L., Nascimento,
N., 2010. Direct conservation payments in the brazilian amazon: scope and
equity implications. Ecol. Econ. 69, 1272–1282.
Braat, L.C., van der Ploeg, S.W.F., Bouma, F., 1979. Functions of the Natural En-
vironment: an Economic-Ecological Research (No. 79/9). Institute for Environ-
mental Studies. Free University, Amsterdam.
Cassola, R., 2010a. TEEB Case: Conserving Forests Through Grants. TEEB, Brazil.
Cassola, R., 2010b. TEEB case: Payments and Technical Support for Reforestation
and Soil Conservation for Watershed Protection. TEEB, Brazil.
Corbera, E., Gonzalez, C., Brown, K., 2009. Institutional dimensions of payments for
ecosystem services: an analysis of Mexico's carbon forestry programme. Ecol.
Econ. 68, 743–761.
Corbera, E., Kosoy, N., Martinez-Tuna, M., 2007. Equity implications of marketing
ecosystem services in protected areas and rural communities: case studies from
Meso-America. Glob. Environ. Change 17, 365–380.
Cordero Camacho, C., 2008. Esquemas de pagos por servicios ambientales para la
conservación de cuencas hidrográficas en el Ecuador. Investig. Agrar.: Sist.
Recur. For. 17, 54–66.
Corporación Andina de Fomento, T.N.C., 2008. Conservando Los Servicios Am-
bientales Para la Gente y la Naturaleza. Taller regional, Bolivia.
Costanza, R., d’Arge, R., de Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Naeem, S.,
Limburg, K., Paruelo, J., O’Neill, R.V., Raskin, R., Sutton, P., van den Belt, M., 1997.
The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387,
253–260.
Costanza, R., Kubiszewski, I., Giovannini, E., Lovins, H., McGlade, J., Pickett, K.E.,
Ragnarsdottir, K.V., Roberts, D., De Vogli, R., Wilkinson, R., 2014. Time to leave
GDP behind. Nature 505, 283–285.
Cromberg, M., Duchelle, A.E., de oliveira Rocha, I., 2014. Local Participation in
REDDþ: lessons from the Eastern Brazilian Amazon. Forests 5, 579–598.
Daily, G., 1997. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Is-
land Press, Washington, DC.
de Groot, R., 1987. Environmental functions as a unifying concept for ecology and
economics. Environmentalist 7, 105–109.
de Groot, R., Brander, L., van der Ploeg, S., Costanza, R., Bernard, F., Braat, L., Christie,
M., Crossman, N., Ghermandi, A., Hein, L., Hussain, S., Kumar, P., McVittie, A.,
Portela, R., Rodriguez, L.C., ten Brink, P., van Beukering, P., 2012. Global esti-
mates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary units. Ecosyst.
Serv. 1, 50–61.
Duchelle, A.E., Cromberg, M., Gebara, M.F., Guerra, R., Melo, T., Larsson, A.M.,
Cronkleton, P., Börner, J., Sills, E., Wunder, S., Bauch, S., May, P., Selaya, G.,
Sunderlin, W.D., 2014. Linking forest tenure reform, environmental compliance,
and incentives: lessons from Reddþinitiatives in the Brazilian Amazon. World
Dev. 55, 53–67.
Ehrlich, P., Ehrlich, A., 1981. Extinction: the Causes and Consequences of the Dis-
appearance of Species. Random House, New York.
Goldman, R.L., Benitez, S., Calvache, A., Davidson, S., Ennaanay, D., McKenzie, E.,
Tallis, H., 2010. TEEBcase: Water Funds for Conservation of Ecosystem Services
in Watersheds. TEEB, Colombia.
Gomez-Baggethun, E., Ruiz-Perez, M., 2011. Economic valuation and the commo-
dification of ecosystem services. Prog. Phys. Geogr. 35, 613–628.
Greiber, T., 2009. Payments for Ecosystem Services. Legal Institutional Frameworks.
IUCN Environmental Policy and Law, Gland, Switzerland, p. 78, Paper no. 78.
Hack, J., Kosmus, M., Kräuter, H.J., Weiskopf, B., Somarriba, D., 2010. TEEBcase:
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–32 31
Payments for Hydrological Ecosystem Services in the Gil González Watershed –
A Public-private-partnership Case Study. TEEB.
Jindal, R., Swallow, B., Kerr, J., 2008. Forestry-based carbon sequestration projects in
Africa: potential benefits and challenges. Nat. Resour. Forum 32, 116–130.
King, R.T., 1966. Wildlife and man. N. Y. Conserv. 20, 8–11.
Kinzig, A.P., Perrings, C., Chapin, F.S., Polasky, S., Smith, V.K., Tilman, D., Turner, B.L.,
2011. Paying for ecosystem services –promise or peril. Science 334, 603–604.
Kosmus, M., Bruner, A., Koning, F., Diaz, W., Felix, M., Linke, J., Mora, M., Moreno, A.,
Lozada, T., Olander, J., Teran, C., Suarez, L., Zurita, P., 2012. TEEBcase: A Long-
term Financial Mechanism for Conservation Agreements in the Ecuadorian
Chocó. TEEB.
Kosoy, N., Martinez-Tuna, M., Muradian, R., Martinez-Alier, J., 2007. Payments for
environmental services in watersheds: insights from a comparative study of
three cases in Central America. Ecol. Econ. 61, 446–455.
Kugel, C., Jha, S.K., 2013. TEEBcase: Implication of Chico Mendes Law in Acre. TEEB,
Brazil.
Kumar, P., 2012. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Ecological and
Economic Foundations. Routledge, New York.
Martinez-Alier, J., 1987. Ecological Economics. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Martin-Ortega, J., Ojea, E., Roux, C., 2013. Payments for water ecosystem services in
Latin America: a literature review and conceptual model. Ecosyst. Serv. 6,
122–13 2.
McCauley, D.J., 2006. Selling out on nature. Nature 443, 27–28.
MEA, 2005. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, General Synthesis Report, Millen-
nium Ecosystem Assessment. Island Press, Washington D.C.
Muñoz Escobar, M., Hollaender, R., Pineda Weffer, C., 2013. Institutional durability
of payments for watershed ecosystem services: lessons from two case studies
from Colombia and Germany. Ecosyst. Serv. 6, 46–53.
Odum, E.P., Odum, H.T., 1972. Natural Areas as necessary components of man's total
environment. In: Proceedings of the Transactions of the Thirty Seventh North
American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference. Wildlife Management
Inst., Washington D.C., pp. 178–189.
Pagiola, S., 2008. Payments for environmental services in Costa Rica. Ecol. Econ. 65,
712–724.
Pagiola, S., Arcenas, A., 2013. TEEBcase: Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem
Management Project –Costa Rica. TEEB, Colombia and Nicaragua.
Perevochtchikova, M., Oggioni, J., 2014. Global and Mexican analytical review of the
state of the art on ecosystem and environmental services: a geographical ap-
proach. Investigaciones Geográficas. Boletín del Instituto de Geografía, UNAM,
pp. 47–65.
Perrings, C., Folke, C., Mäler, K.G., 1992. The ecology and economics of biodiversity
loss: the research agenda. AMBIO 21, 201–211.
Perrot-Maitre, D., 2006. The Vittel Payments for Ecosystem Services: A “Perfect”
PES Case?. International Institute for Environment and Development, London,
UK.
Peterson, M.J., Hall, D.M., Feldpausch-Parker, A.M., Peterson, T.R., 2010. Obscuring
ecosystem function with application of the ecosystem services concept. Con-
serv. Biol. 24, 113–119.
Pimentel, C., 1980. Environmental quality and natural biota. BioScience 30,
750–755.
Porras, I., 2010. TEEBcase: PES as a Strategy to Minimize Risk: The Case of La
Esperanza Hydroelectric Power Company. TEEB, Costa Rica.
Porras, I., Grieg-Gran, M., Neves, N., 2008. All That Glitters: A Review of Payments
for Watershed Services in Developing Countries (No. Natural Resource Issues
1.1). International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK.
Porras, I.T., Neves, N., 2006. Markets for Watershed Services –Country Profile. In-
ternational Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), London, UK.
Redondo-Brenes, A., Welsh, K., 2010. TEEBcase: Procuencas Project. TEEB, Costa
Rica.
Renner, I., 2010. TEEBcase: Compensation Scheme for Upstream Farmers in Muni-
cipal Protected Area. TEEB, Peru.
Rico Garcia-Amado, L., Ruiz-Perez, M., Barrasa Garcia, S., 2013. Motivation for
conservation: assessing integrated conservation and development projects and
payments for environmental services in La Sepultura Biosphere Reserve,
Chiapas, Mexico. Ecol. Econ. 89, 92–100 .
Ringhofer, L., Singh, S.J., Smetschka, B., 2013. Current Approaches to Climate Change
Mitigation in Latin America. Collaborative Project ROBIN. FP7-ENV-2011.2.1.4-1.
Ringhofer, L., Singh, S.J., Smetschka, B., Grima, N., Lauk, C., Submitted. Main-
streaming Biodiversity in Development Practice: Can the Concept of Payment
for Ecosystem Services (PES) Deliver? Development in practice.
Robertson, N., Wunder, S., 2005. Fresh Tracks in the Forest: Assessing Incipient
Payments for Environmental Services Initiatives in Bolivia. CIFOR, Bogor,
Indonesia.
Rodriguez-de-Francisco, J.C., Budds, J., 2014. Payments for environmental services
and control over conservation of natural resources: The role of public and
private sectors in the conservation of the Nima watershed, Colombia. Ecol.
Econ. 117, 295–302.
Sattler, C., Trampnau, S., Schomers, S., Meyer, C., Matzdorf, B., 2013. Multi-classifi-
cation of payments for ecosystem services: how do classification characteristics
relate to overall PES success? Ecosyst. Serv. 6, 31–45.
Schomers, S., Matzdorf, B., 2013. Payments for ecosystem services: a review and
comparison of developing and industrialized countries. Ecosyst. Serv. 6, 16–30.
Schröter, M., van der Zanden, E.H., van Oudenhoven, A.P.E., Remme, R.P., Serna-
Chavez, H.M., de Groot, R., Opdam, P., 2014. Ecosystem services as a contested
concept: a synthesis of critique and counter-arguments. Conserv. Lett. 7,
514–523.
Simpson, R.D., 2011. The “Ecosystem Service Framework”: A Critical Assessment.
Singh, S.J., Dudley, N., 2010. Ecosystem services in rural areas and natural resource
management. In: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Local and
Regional Policy Makers. Progress Press, Malta, pp. 81–104.
Southgate, D., Wunder, S., 2009. Paying for watershed services in Latin America: a
review of current initiatives. J. Sustain. For. 28, 497–524.
Swallow, B.M., Leimona, B., Yatich, T., Velarde, S.J., 2010. The conditions for func-
tional mechanisms of compensation and reward for environmental services.
Ecol. Soc. 15, 6.
Tognetti, S.S., Johnson, N., 2008. Ecosystem services from improved soil and water
management: creating a return flow from their multiple benefits. People Agro-
Ecosyst. Res. Dev. Chall.
Turpie, J.K., Marabis, C., Blignaut, J.N., 2008. The working for water programme:
evolution of payments for ecosystem services mechanism that addresses both
poverty and ecosystem service delivery in South Africa. Ecol. Econ. 65, 788–798.
UNDP, 2011. Supporting Transformational Change: Case Studies of Sustained and
Successful Development Cooperation. United National Development Pro-
gramme, New York.
Vatn, A., Barton, D.N., Porras, I., Rusch, G.M., Stenslie, E., 2014. Payments for Nature
Values. Market and Non-Market Instruments. Norad (Norwegian Agency for
Development Cooperation), Oslo, Norway.
Westman, W., 1977. How much are “nature’s services”worth? Science 197,
960–964.
Wunder, S., 2007. The Efficiency of Payments for Environmental Services in Tropical
Conservation. Conserv. Biol. 21, 48–58.
Wunder, S., Engel, S., Pagiola, S., 2008. Taking stock: a comparative analysis of
payments for environmental services programs in developed and developing
countries. Ecol. Econ. 65, 834–852.
N. Grima et al. / Ecosystem Services 17 (2016) 24–3232
