Payments for Ecosystem Services Flashcards
Can payments for ecosystem services solve the conservation crisis?
Ecosystem services- the benefits people obtain from nature
Supporting:
- nutrient cycling
- soil formation
- primary production
Leads to Provisioning: - Food - Freshwater - Wood and fiber - Fueb
Regulating:
- Climate regulation
- Flood regulation
- Disease regulation
- Water purification
Cultural:
- Aesthetic
- Spiritual
- Educational
- Recreational
Supporting service: Generation and Renewal of Soil Fertility
Prairie grasslands and savannas of
North America generated the fertile
soils that feed 200,000,000 people.
Regulating service: Nature-provided purification of water
The Catskill Mountains provide
New York City with a service
worth about $1 billion/yr.
One service that is essential to humans is the purification of air and water. Early European settlers in North America obtained their drinking water just as did the Native Americans – by collecting it directly from lakes, rivers and streams near their homes. As cities grew, they drew water from pristine lakes or damned pristine rivers, and built aqueducts to carry the water to the city. This is ancient technology that has worked since the time of the Roman Empire. Just such aqueducts carried clear, pure water to the fountains – the urban springs – of ancient Rome. Pure clean water was always a free product of nature – an ecosystem service obtained merely for the cost its transport.
Humans Have Benefited
From The Vast Diversity of
Potential Food Plants
Potato Varieties
And what do we grow on soils? Another service of nature – organisms that we have found in nature that we like to eat and that grow well for us. Indeed, we have mined and are still mining the biological diversity of nature. In the 10000 years since humans invented agriculture, we have discovered and used their natural genetic diversity to improve crops that how feed 6 billion people.
Other Ecosystem Services Include: Detoxification and decomposition of wastes Pollination of crops Control of many agricultural pests Moderation of climate (trees make rain) Natural production of fish, forage, biomass fuels, and industrial products Amelioration of flooding Maintenance of genetic resources Aesthetic beauty
There are many other ecosystem services of value to society. Ecosystems detoxify and decompose wastes. Even when we engineer a system to do this – such as a municipal sewage treatment plant – we actually achieve the decomposition and the detoxification using a large number of species of bacteria and fungi.
Insect pollinate crops for us – could you afford fruit or vegetables if farmers had to carry pollen from one plant to another with a paintbrush? But, poorly managed farms do not leave land nearby for the pollinators to live in – or kill pollinators inadvertently with pesticides. (~$14 billion US, ~9 billion pounds, of crops in the US depend on bee pollinators. Loss of pollinators would lead to the loss of much of those sales and the enjoyment from them and the health from them)
And how should farmers control pests? Recent work has shown that many agricultural pests are most effectively and inexpensively controlled by predators, parasites and parasitoids that can live in semi-natural buffer strips around the edges of fields. Although this requires that farmers not plow their land from fence to fence, it can actually save farmers money and can save farmers, farm workers, and their families from exposure to toxins.
There are many other ecosystems services – each of which has value to society – but few of which have ever been formally recognized by society as having economic value.
Millennium ecosystem assessment
Most services are declining, as land use change is increasing (increase food services but decreases air quality, erosion, pest, pollination, aesthetic and spiritual values etc)
Level of poverty remains high and inequities are growing
Economics and Human Development
1.1 billion people survive on 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation
Water scarcity affects ~1–2 billion people worldwide
The purpose of the MillenniumAssessmentEcosystems & 100’s scientific, political, and social studies?
To persuade the world (and the decision-makers within our world) to undertake policy reforms that will restore and protect nature, for the ecosystem services that we get from them.
The fact that Ecosystem Services are more heavily relied on by the poor makes this objective more difficult to achieve. Do you see why?
Economic valuation of services
Ecosystem services can be valued in monetary terms (Costanza et al. 1997 Nature)
US$16-54 trillion yr-1
Balmford et al., 2002 Science, 297, 950-953.
In 2002, they found 5 studies showing that the total economic value of the ecosystem services from intact natural habitats were greater than the private values of converting those habitats
Economic reasons for conserving wild nature
Mangroves in Thailand
timber, charcoal, NTFPs (non-timber forest products), offshore fisheries, and storm protection worth 60,000
shrimp is worth 20,000
This is a monetised value that goes to more politically powerful actors
Can PES protect the tropics?
Ecotourism
REDD+
Global ecotourism is a BIG business
~USD $29 billion yr-1 spent on ecotourism in non-OECD countries (World Travel & Tourism Council 2007)
~USD $162-415 million yr-1 in official conservation aid & UN GEF to developing countries (Pearce 2007 Env Res Econ)
If 1% of ecotourism revenues were spent on conservation, that would equal official aid.
We spend a lot of time asking whether strict-sense conservation money is spent correctly. Much less attention is spent on asking whether ecotourism money is spent on conservation actions
Can ecotourism pay for conservation?
A short history of ecotourism in Madre de Dios, Peru
Even dirt roads improve access
1975 = 2 ecolodges 2006 = 35
Average length of stay = 2-3 nights
So, in terms of land use, ecotourism companies directly control the following areas, through ownership of titled lands on some form of concession (tourism, conservation, brazil nut).
Ecotourism is a successful business strategyfor Tambopata (1980-2006)
BUT: Is ecotourism a failed conservation strategy?
“A desperate race to make money while you still can.” - Richard Leakey (May 2007, Guardian newspaper)
PES: “…pay for what you want (e.g. protected rain forest), rather than pay for something indirectly related to it (e.g., capital for improving eco-tourism).” - Ferraro & Kiss (2003, Science)
Positive return on investment leads to land acquisition
89% of acreage acquired by the 4 most profitable lodges
Great Wall of Ecotourism
Controlling trail systems
Capturing the insurance and option value of forest near lodges
Personal interest in conservation
The governance model of ecotourism
Biodiversity leads to tourism, leads to local and national spending, leads to owner profits, leads to concession laws protecting biodiversity
Ecotourism as agovernance innovator
2007 Government proposal to remove part of a national park
2007 Government proposal to remove part of a national park
Law to modify the borders of the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park
Article 1: Exclude from the park 209,782 Ha…leaving 881,663 Ha….
Television, newspaper, internet campaigns, partly financed by ecotourism lodges
Proposal was abandoned by Peruvian government
- Rainforest Expeditions (Eduardo and Co.) suggested a rerun of the Winitski (sp?) wildlife film “Candamo: La Ultima Selva sin Hombres” which was screened back in 1997 ish. In the end what happened was that a reporter from Cuarto Poder (a current affairs program on Peruvian TV, I think Canal 5) was invited to visit Candamo (actually the Tavara river and the La Nube Research Station) and RFE put on all the logistics for the trip.
This significantly increased local Peruvian opinion on the matter. It was followed quickly by appearances from Ernesto Raez on the TV program Hildebrandt and others on other radio and tv programs. - Most lodges and guides signed the two online petitions that garnered many thousands of supporters. The English version of the petition (on the Petition Site) was first developed by Alan Lee, a South African biologist who works for RFE on their Macaw Project.
- The lodges (Rainforest Expeditions and Inkaterra particularly, i.e. two of the largest) are active members of the Interoceanica Working Group, headed by Ernesto Raez. last year when the de-gazetting issue was hot, the working group was instrumental in getting information out to its members about what the government was up to. Indeed it was a member who first alerted everyone of the Proyecto de Ley to de-gazette. The lodges stated rightly that oil exploration and any potential spill could have disastrous impacts on their business and the image of Tambopata as an ecotourist destination.
Yes, there are meetings between Working Group members and government officials, and at least Eduardo and one of Inkaterra’s reps have gone to those meetings as well.
Eduardo is also involved in advising the Odebrecht Foundation, which is concerned with redressing (at least minimally) any env impacts of the road, as Odebrecht will be running the road after it is completed. Taking Odebrecht Foundation hierarchy on field trips to the area. Advising on who is who, and helping to identify key people, projects etc for funding
Ecotourism in Tambopata
Protects forests
Raises capital – lodge profits + local investment & employment
Governance innovator
So is PES under ecotourism the answer to tropical conservation?
‘Venezuelan flowerpiercer’ problem
Cordillera de Caripe
Walter Palmer, dentist from Minnesota paid $50,000 to shoot Cecil with bow and arrow
Mann et al. 1994 Geophys Res Lett
temperature curve, currently at 1.1°C
Global imbalance in deforestation
and in climate change effects
REDD+
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation
The ‘+’ was added to include roles of:
Biodiversity conservation
Sustainable forestry
Enhancements of forest carbon stocks
North-South flow of capital
UNFCCC predicts REDD+ payments could reach $30 billion per year
Carbon-Biodiversity co-benefits?
Win-win when high carbon stores correlate with high biodiversity
Carbon payments thus protect biodiversity
Gardner et al. 2012 Biol Conserv & Phelps et al. 2012 Nature Climate Ch
Carbon and all species
Carbon and threatened species
Strassburg et al. 2010 Conserv Lett
Overlaying carbon and biodiversity
Strong correlations with carbon:
But plenty of noise
Andes, Himalaya, Atlantic forest = lots species, but low carbon
Economic costs of protecting carbon?
Introducing the cost of a tCO2
Some areas might have high carbon, but prohibitively high costs?
Others lower carbon, but be very cheap?
Market will pay lowest $t-1 CO2 possible
Need to account for lost potential revenue
i.e. profit you could have earned from logging and/or farming (opportunity cost)
- Borneo (Sundaland)
Very intensive logging
Forest conversion to plantations
Can REDD+ save dipterocarps?
Net Present Value (NPV) of forest Profits from timber extraction Focus on Sabah, NE Borneo Logging records from 300,000 ha of forest Records include tree species and sizes Profits from conversion to oil palm
Fisher, Edwards et al. 2011 Frontiers Ecol Evol
Additional cost of preserving a hectare of primary forest
At 24 000 dollars per hectare, carbon payments per ton of CO2 is at 47 dollars meaning oil palm and timer are less profitable than REDD+
At 12,750 dollars per hectare, 28 dollars per tCO2, it is more profitable than timber
- Tropical Andes
Low intensity cattle farming
Can REDD+ enhance regrowth?
Is carbon enhancement via natural regeneration on abandoned farmland viable under REDD+?
Gilroy et al. 2014 Nature Climate Change
Secondary forest regrowth is very effective over time
Can REDD+ enhance regrowth? Is carbon enhancement via natural regeneration on abandoned farmland viable under REDD+? Two interrelated questions: How quickly does carbon recover? What is the cost $t-1 CO2? Gilroy et al. 2014 Nature Climate Change
(1) Carbon recovery with time
Pasture 12 t aboveground carbon stock per hectare
30 years after 120 t
Primary forest is 230t
(2) Estimating carbon cost
Opportunity cost of taking cattle pasture out of production
Gilroy et al. 2014 Nature Climate Change
Cost of reforesting one hectare of pasture (US$) vs. Carbon market price (US$ t-1 CO2)
at $2 per tCO2, cost of reforesting is $0
Summary: REDD+ & co-benefits
Carbon market demands low prices
Voluntary market $7.8 tCO2 in 2013
Bilateral agreements ~$5 tCO2
REDD+ cheaply protects carbon with biodiversity co-benefits in some areas
Andes $2/tCO2; E. Africa=$6.5/tCO2
Elsewhere either:
Will not meet market price (SE Asia $47/tCO2)
Will protect areas without big co-benefits
Four key REDD+ challenges
(1) Neo-colonialist or pro-poor?
Inequitable forest management operated by national governments not local people
People alienated from resources they depend upon
2010 Cancun agreements established safeguards. Will they work?
(2) Leakage
Protection in one location, simply displaces deforestation elsewhere?
Leakage means could pay for no benefit
Fear of leakage = major block to international approval of REDD+
(3) Agricultural intensification
DRC wants to intensify food production to save most forest at $11.8 t-1 CO2
But…
Intensification results in better transport networks, which raise possible profits
Phelps et al. 2013 PNAS
(4) Are natural habitats protected?
Carbon enhancements fund forest growth
Very positive if secondary forests or logged forests are recovered in areas with natural forests
But are safeguards sufficient to prevent (non-native) tree plantations being grown on natural grasslands and shrublands?
Summary
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes monetize and commodify nature
Supporting, Provisioning, Regulating & Cultural
PES offers big funds to protect nature
Becoming a multi-billion $$ industry
Big benefits in some cases
Key question = how to avoids PES pitfalls?
