Payments for Environmental Services: Background
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CHAPTER 8 A NEW TOOL FO R SUS ta IN A BLE FO R ES T MA N A GEMEN T IN CEN tra L AF R I ca : PA YMEN T S FO R ENVI R ONMEN ta L SE R VI C ES Guillaume Lescuyer, Alain Karsenty and Richard Eba’a Atyi Payments for Environmental Services: Background Tropical forests represent one of the rare eco- systems able to provide an abundance of products and support a diversity of human practices: from villagers seeking a source of natural products, the state seeking to conserve biodiversity, the timber processor, to the Global Environment Facility, which sees it as a carbon sink, the rainforest is multi-purpose and multi-stakeholder par excel- lence. First and foremost, the tropical forest provides material support for local populations’ way of life: the ecosystem is both their environment, a source of raw materials and foodstuffs, and a land reserve Ribas - GTZ © Frank for farming expansion. Most people in the Congo Photo 8.1: Tropical forests Basin meet basic needs by direct exploitation of alternate between dense their environment: fuelwood, timber, game, non- undergrowth and gaps. timber forest products (NTFP) … Nationally, the rainforest is often viewed as Table 8.1: Categories of environmental services provided by forests supporting economic development: industrial logging is supposed to generate economic growth, Regulatory functions Productive functions employment and foreign exchange earnings. The forest provides support to economic The forest provides basic resources, Most reforms of sub-regional forest policy in the activities and human well-being by: notably: past fifteen years were primarily geared towards - climate regulation - building materials: wood, lianas... improving timber production and processing. - hydric regulation - energy: fuelwood... Finally, tropical forests also provide a set of - protection against soil erosion - food resources: non-timber products, indirect benefits as “natural capital,” including - maintaining biodiversity game... the generation of environmental services. The loss - carbon sequestration - medicinal resources of these benefits would diminish the well-being - recycling organic matter and human - genetic resources of human societies. Unlike the extractive uses of waste forest resources, the environmental services pro- Physical support functions Informational functions vided by tropical forests are not yet incorporated The forest provides the space and re- The forest provides esthetic, cultural into forest policies, even if all Congo Basin states quired substrates for: and scientific benefits: have signed international conventions on climate - habitat - source of cultural and artistic inspi- change, biodiversity or wetlands. However, as - farming zones ration stated in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, - recreational sites - spiritual information tropical forests have four functions that cannot be - conserved natural spaces - historic, scientific and educational broken down just into the production of material information resources. - potential information 127 Part 2 En.indd 127 07/12/2009 22:02:37 There is currently much scientific uncertainty currently at center of debate - carbon sequestra- about how these ecological functions play out as tion, biodiversity conservation, and watershed well as their interrelations, especially in tropical protection - which generate significant economic forests. After their production roles, attention benefits, as illustrated in the following table, both turns to forests’ regulatory functions so these can generally (Pearce and Pearce, 2001), and specifi- be better integrated into the sustainable manage- cally as in the case of Cameroon (Ruitenbeek, ment process. Three environmental services are 1990; Lescuyer, 2000, Yaron, 2001). Table 8.2: Estimation of the main economic benefits derived from tropical forests (in current $ per hectare) Goods or services Tropical forest Cameroon forest: Korup Cameroon forest: forest Cameroon forest: provided by the tropical (Pearce and Pearce, National Park concession in the East Mount Cameroun forest 2001) (Ruitenbeek, 1990) (Lescuyer, 2000) (Yaron, 2001) Timber 200 – 4,400 580 NTFP 0 – 1,000 60 1 40 - 70 Tourism 20 – 4,700 20 Genetic resources 0 – 3,000 7 3 Watershed 150 – 8,500 70 270 Carbon sequestration 360 – 2,200 980 2,260 Benefits of non-usage 50 – 4,400 20 - 30 Thus, these environmental services have a ample, unlike the person who fells a tree and sells positive impact on human well-being, some- the timber, there is no payment for protecting times greater than the impact from lucrative ac- the forest, its carbon and biodiversity. But, as true tivities. Such estimates depend on both local and in Central Africa as it is anywhere else, an effective analyst assumptions - on methods and on some way to change forest managers’ behavior is to change variables - and are hard to extrapolate (Lescuyer, the revenues and costs derived from management. A 2000). Nonetheless, they indicate the potential better way to take into account forests’ environmen- importance of certain products or certain eco- tal functions involves assigning a price to be paid by logical functions rarely subject to management the beneficiary of these services which provides an measures. As they are rarely subject to monetary income for the producer/protector of these services. transactions, environmental services are difficult This is the purpose of payments for environmen- to incorporate into forest management. For ex- tal services (PES). Implementing Payments for Environmental Services in Congo Basin Forests The rationale behind PES schemes is simple: in the absence of such payments. In theory, the external beneficiaries of environmental services PES contractual mechanisms should have five make a direct, contractual and conditional pay- main features: (1) a voluntary transaction where ment to the owners or users of the sites if they (2) a clearly defined environmental service (3) is adopt practices to secure the conservation/restoration “purchased” by (at least) one individual consumer of the ecosystem and thereby generate environ- (4) from (at least) one individual supplier, (5) if mental services (Pagiola et al., 2002; Wertz-Ka- and only if the supplier guarantees the continued nounnikoff, 2006). In this way, users receive a production of the environmental service (Wun- direct incentive to include environmental services der, 2005). In practice, these conditions are rarely in their land and resource use decisions, which met: PES vary significantly by level (competitive should ideally lead to better resource use than markets, or on the basis of profits made by the 128 Part 2 En.indd 128 07/12/2009 22:02:38 ecological service, or based on opportunity costs the report covers the assignment of bioprospect- borne by the actors involved) and by type of fi- ing access rights in Cameroon. 1 nancial transfer (in cash or in kind, through tax- Even today, if we refer to http://www.ecosys- es, trust funds, bilateral or multilateral compensa- temmarketplace.com, a PES discussion and pro- tion,...). Moreover, biodiversity conservation PES motion group (Katoomba Group), PES imple- employ three broad types of support: mentation in the African rainforest is addressed in • schemes based on area, where the contract is for a five papers, and even then, only partially. Hence particular space in which all or certain uses are there is currently very little PES activity with re- prohibited, such as a first-class protected area; gard to the Congo Basin forest. • schemes based on products, where consumers pay Yet many sub-regional actors are beginning a “green” premium in addition to the market to pay close attention to this type of mechanism. price for a property that has been produced in As for donors, the African Development Bank in compliance with environmental standards; 2008 launched the "Congo Basin Forest Fund,” • schemes based on use restrictions which compen- with more than $ 110 million, which will be sate users for limiting their use of resources, partly devoted to setting up PES, including the without restriction to a particular area, such as fight against climate change. Similarly, the World preventing great ape hunting or sea turtle fish- Bank, with its Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, ing. and the United Nations - UNDP, UNEP, FAO There is in fact a continuum of PES initiatives - have significant funding for implementing sub- ranging from competitive markets to projects to regional programs for reforestation or avoided de- promote environmental services and regulatory forestation. Finally, the Global Environment Fa- approaches using economic incentives (Grieg- cility has started a "Strategic Program to Support Gran et al., 2005). Whichever form the PES takes, Sustainable Forest Management in the Congo the approach is still recent in Central Africa, and Basin,” which is also skewed towards PES. not widely implemented. In the early 2000s, Lan- All this funding is for three main environ- dell-Mills and Porras (2002) conducted a broad mental services – carbon sequestration, biodi- review of market mechanisms designed to ensure versity conservation, and watershed maintenance maintenance of several forest environmental ser- – which are just starting to be implemented in vices. The only case study from Central Africa in Central Africa. Photo 8.2: Pitsawing is a common activity on the edge of the forest (near Mitzic, Gabon). © Olivier Bonneau © Olivier 1 The opportunity cost corresponds to the sum of lost net benefits due to the loss of access to natural resources.