Participation constrained: Generating buy-in and rationalizing carbon forestry labor through participatory mapping in Southern Mexico

In recent years diverse actors have hailed participatory practice as an effective means to empowering people in payment for ecosystem services (PES) work. In Chiapas, Mexico participation is a central component of the Scolel’ Te carbon forestry program, the cornerstone of which includes Plan Vivo participatory mapping. Plan Vivo mapping is used by the managing NGO, AMBIO, to build trust relations between participating farmers and program managers so as to ensure the successful production of carbon credits. However, I argue that it is also used to instill in farmers a series of behavioral and attitudinal transformations designed to align farmer land-use activities and attitudes with the program’s carbon credit production objectives. Yet, despite these ambitions, the ability of the mapping activity in Scolel’ Te to achieve its stated goals is challenged on the ground. In order to explain this discrepancy between the aspirations tied to the mapping activity and the mapping experience, I assess Plan Vivo mapping as a situated discourse and as a labor process. Taking the former perspective, I show how the managing NGO uses a paternalistic discourse to justify participatory mapping, one that presents farmers as misguided resource managers in need of external intervention. Then, using a labor process approach, I show how PVM acts to reorient farmer relationships to their land and to development organizations by intervening in farmer land-use practices and by establishing trust relations. It is, however, a process that consists of inequalities that stand to potentially limit the effectiveness of the activity.     

What’s in a name? Epistemic perspectives and Payments for Ecosystem Services policies in Nicaragua

As Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) continues to gain attention as a policy tool for securing efficient and effective environmental governance, a rising tide of criticism warns of the potentially detrimental social–ecological consequences of nature commodification and ‘green neoliberalism’. These concerns are also expressed at international policy fora, where the market rhetoric has met with political resistance from countries belonging to the ‘Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America’ (ALBA). But despite this ideological opposition, some ALBA countries are increasingly integrating PES into their environmental policies. In this article we consider the reasons underlying this apparent contradiction and relate it to the notion of ‘epistemic circulation’. On the basis of a study on the evolution of PES-thinking in Nicaragua (an ALBA member) and a reassessment of the supposed ‘success’ of an influential pilot project, we shed light on the forces driving the adoption of particular PES modes and contextualise practical difficulties to endorsing more critical approaches to the tool. Instead of either ideologically rejecting PES as a neoliberal evil or embracing it uncritically as the new panacea, we argue that it is precisely through the socio-political processes surrounding environmental governance debates that the application of PES is shaped. In practice, it may either contribute to an imposed and dispossessing form of capitalism, or tend towards a more negotiated and socio-culturally embedded version of it. Only through its reconceptualisation based on political–cultural primacy rather than market-fetishism can PES achieve its true potential within a broader strategy towards improved environmental governance.     

Assessment of the management of organizations supplying ecosystem services from tropical forests

Global environmental change leads to degradation of tropical forests in many countries. In response to this pressure, programs for payments for ecosystem services (PES) are developing and organizations are emerging which manage forests in order to supply ecosystem services, rather than only harvest timber. Typically such services are carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, pollination, and watershed protection. Public or private actors interested to invest in or donate money for the provisioning of such services are faced with the problem of choosing the appropriate organization supplying ecosystem services. The goal of this paper was to develop an assessment framework based on the balanced scorecard concept including drivers, impact, performance and context variables. Results of a survey of international market actors were used to determine assessment criteria and their weights. Putting the focus of this paper on drivers and impacts, we assessed Latin American organizations that “sell” ecosystem services from tropical forests in terms of their general management, marketing, forest management, client and stakeholder satisfaction, and forest ecosystem status. We found that supplying organizations vary widely with respect to their achievements in these areas. However, the variance of assessment results is influenced even more by the variance in weights the international market actors allocate to the assessment criteria. The insights of this study can contribute to the continuous improvement of management processes in supplying organizations and can support investors and donors in their decision-making with respect to organization supplying ecosystem services.     

PES 的故障处理

介绍了卫星数据地面站（ＰＥＳ）出现故障的为数极少的个例。提出发判断故障的途径。解决故障的办法是查阅ＰＥＳ５０００的相关资料,遵循先简后繁、由表及时、由外及内的排除故障原则。     

Brazil's Amazon forest in mitigating global warming: unresolved controversies

Brazil's Amazon rainforest provides an important environmental service with its storage of carbon, thereby reducing global warming. A growing number of projects and proposals intend to reward carbon storage services. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is currently a key issue for negotiations on an international agreement that is to take effect in 2013. Various issues require decisions that will have substantial impacts on both the effectiveness of mitigation and the scale of Amazonia's potential role. These decisions include the effects that money generated from payments can have, the spatial scale of mitigation (e.g. projects or countries and sub-national political units), whether to have voluntary or mandatory markets, and whether these reductions will generate carbon credits to offset emissions elsewhere. It is argued that national-level programmes, combined with a national target under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, are the best solution for Brazil in terms of both capturing international funding and stimulating the major cuts in global emissions that are needed to minimize climate risk to the Amazon rainforest. The high likelihood of passing a tipping point for maintaining the Amazon rainforest implies the need for urgency in altering current negotiating positions.     

流域生态补偿研究现状及关键问题剖析

在流域,因竞争性用水导致上下游之间、人类发展与生态环境之间的矛盾日益尖锐,急需建立健全流域生态补偿机制.通过对国内外流域生态补偿研究进展进行梳理,发现流域生态补偿研究主要集中在流域尺度的补偿计划实施评价、补偿尺度的选择、补偿标准的测算、生态补偿与减少贫困关系、流域生态补偿的空间差异性等方面,其关键问题在于生态补偿主体和对象的确定以及补偿标准的制定;研究认为通过流域断面水量水质及相关利益分析方法来确定补偿主体和对象;而补偿标准则以流域上下游生态损益、机会成本、居民支付意愿分别作为补偿上限、参考值和下限来综合确定.以此为基础,构建流域多种生态要素、多元主体间的流域生态补偿机制研究框架.最后,就流域生态补偿机制构建过程中有待解决的科学问题进行了讨论.     

生态补偿的研究进展及其启示

生态系统服务付费是以保护和可持续利用生态系统服务为目的,以经济手段为主调节相关者利益关系的制度安排,是以保护生态环境、促进人与自然和谐发展为目的,根据生态系统服务价值、生态保护成本、发展机会成本,运用政府和市场手段,调节生态保护利益相关者之间利益关系的公共制度.在对国内外生态补偿的概念、内涵和基本问题等理论阐述的基础上...     

生态补偿方式对农户可持续生计影响分析

对长汀县2000年以来的生态补偿措施进行分类,总结出各生态补偿方式的具体形式和补偿客体;并基于可持续生计分析框架,系统阐述了各生态补偿方式对农户生计资本、生计策略和生计结果的影响．结果表明,现金补偿部分缓解了因封山育林等措施对农户生计造成的不利影响;实物补偿增强了主要参与农户的物质资本,并确定了以农业为主的生计策略和相对稳定的纯收入;政策补偿主要使主要参与农户获得具有稳定产权的山地资源;技术补偿和产业补偿的作用相对较弱．最后,为增强今后各类农户可持续生计,提出技术补偿、政策补偿和产业补偿方式方面的具体对策．