Participation in payments for ecosystem services: Case studies from the Lacandon rainforest, Mexico

Understanding people’s willingness to participate in projects and programmes of payments for ecosystem services (PES) has not been a key analytical concern of the scholarly literature around this new field of environmental policy and practice. This paper analyses participation in four communities benefiting from payments for biodiversity and carbon fixation in Mexico, and contrasts the results for each case with neighbouring communities that do not receive payments. We take a holistic approach that accounts for procedural rules, actors’ interactions, institutions and values, and individuals’ characteristics. We show that the nature of PES rules and the effectiveness of communication with government officers and NGOs influence resource managers’ ability and willingness to participate. We highlight community size, resource managers’ ability to diversify livelihood activities and local perspectives on the conservation of common forests, particularly sacred values and intergenerational concerns on forest conservation, as critical participation drivers. This analysis provides insights on why and how these new institutions may be attractive for some resource managers and permits to draw some recommendations for the future design of PES projects and programmes.     

Juggling multiple dimensions in a complex socio-ecosystem: The issue of targeting in payments for ecosystem services

Proponents of payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes advocate targeting payments to geographical areas that can: (a) maintain or enhance ecosystem services, (b) permit economically efficient arrangements and (c) address poverty objectives. The location of these efficient, effective and equitable (or triple-win) solutions is viewed as the ‘holy grail’ of PES and is often sought in isolation to broader socio-economic pressures, political relationships, or local cultural conditions. While the plethora of PES design perspectives often follow the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness, they seldom relate to pluralistic value systems and may disparage local self-determination for influencing the form and terms of negotiation. This paper critically analyses the assumptions underpinning the design of PES schemes which seek to optimise or target efficient, effective and poverty objectives. Using a case study for a proposed PES initiative in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, we employ spatial analysis to geographically visualise the discrepancy between the location for a typology of targeted objectives and actual preferences which support local perceptions of natural resource use and conservation. The case study highlights the inequity inherent in targeting payments under a neoliberal framing. Instead, spatially differentiating incentives according to socially determined priorities and collective management is suggested.     

喀斯特生态系统服务研究进展与展望

喀斯特生态系统是全球典型的脆弱生态系统之一,它为人类提供了重要的服务功能和价值。回顾国内外喀斯特生态系统服务研究的文献可发现,当前研究多遵循“土地利用变化—生态系统服务价值响应”的研究范式,仅重视中小尺度喀斯特生态系统服务价值的空间异质性,强调土地利用变化和生态工程对生态系统服务价值的影响。而今后应加强基于“生态系统结构、过程—功能—服务”级联框架的喀斯特生态系统服务研究,构建喀斯特生态系统服务分类体系,突出大尺度喀斯特生态系统服务评估,拓展喀斯特生态系统服务之间权衡与协同及喀斯特生态系统服务对人类福祉的影响,定量分析自然和人为因素对喀斯特生态系统服务的影响。      

The political ecology of biodiversity conservation on the Malagasy Highlands

During the past two decades biodiversity conservation has become the major focus of international interventions by donor organizations and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) working in Madagascar. Despite these efforts, biodiversity losses continue unabated and the conservation activities undertaken to date appear ineffective. This paper summarizes the findings of a research study conducted on the central highlands of Madagascar that sought to examine possible reasons for the continued erosion of biodiversity in the country. A political ecology research framework is used to identify different social actor groups vying for access to natural resources and the extent to which their actions influence biodiversity on the island. The application of this framework reveals three major findings: (1) the existence of tensions between groups of social actors vying for access to and use of natural resources; (2) the characteristics and role of power differs greatly by actor group and it is the maldistribution of power, and its manifestations of use, that have detrimental effects on regional biodiversity; and (3) there are numerous aspects of the `conventional wisdom' that have permeated the thinking of staff from extralocal actor groups (especially NGOs, donors, and government agencies) and are largely false. Such `wisdom,' perpetrated by discourse and media, lacks understanding of local livelihood patters and local needs. However, endowed with political power and financial influence, this wisdom dominates local knowledge and ultimately leads to the conception and realization of conservation projects that fail to achieve their stated objectives. The behaviors of all of the actors in this situation perpetuate the status quo, including current patterns of biodiversity elimination.     

湿地生态系统服务估值研究进展

湿地生态系统服务价值评估是湿地研究的核心内容之一,科学合理的估值有利于湿地资源的开发利用和保护. 在简要介绍湿地及其生态系统服务定义和特征的基础上,提出现有湿地生态系统服务价值评估的框架,并对单项服务价值评估的主要方法进行了回顾和总结. 通过分析发现,现有研究中存在研究对象不明确、忽视研究背景、研究方法割裂联系、数据获取困难等问题,针对上述4个方面讨论了湿地生态系统服务价值评估的研究趋势. 评述结果旨在梳理湿地生态系统服务及其价值评估的知识体系,为相关研究提供理论借鉴与指导.     

Identification of the core ecosystem services and their spatial heterogeneity in Poyang Lake area

According to the ecosystem assessment framework developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), this paper designs an evaluation system of ecosystem services in Poyang Lake area. On the basis of relevant variables disaggregated to 1 km grid using the gridded 1 km, this paper employs factor analysis to extract a number of factors which characterize the ecosystem services of Poyang Lake area. The extracted principal component are then represented onto 1 km×1 km grids by spatial clustering analysis to recognize and identify the minimal but consistent mapping units for ecosystem services which can be used to delimit the boundaries of ecological service zones. The research identifies ten ecosystem service zones in Poyang Lake area according to the consistent principle of core ecosystem service unit. Four kinds of core ecosystem services including supporting function, provisioning function, regulating function and cultural function are identified and represented. The research results could provide both spatially and temporally valuable decision-making information for sustainable ecosystem management in the targeted area.     

新疆大喀纳斯旅游区游客的生态系统服务消耗研究

生态系统服务消耗是生态经济相关研究领域关注的热点。以新疆大喀纳斯旅游区为实证点,在游客消费的生态系统服务类型分析基础上,利用物质量法与能值分析法,结合调研数据和统计资料,尝试从景区这类较小尺度空间开展游客生态系统服务消耗计量与分析。结果表明：2010年游客生态系统服务消耗总量为2.54×10¹⁹sej;游客食、住、行、游、娱、环卫等结构中餐饮活动的生态系统服务消耗水平最高,占总消耗的46.48%,其次为游憩活动的消耗水平,占总消耗量的27.76%。游客物质产品类生态系统服务的消耗比重最大,占总消耗的44.52%,此类服务中又以食物消耗所占比重最大;生态安全维护类生态系统服务消耗占总消耗的比重为27.72%,此类服务中CO₂固定和废物吸收处理所占比重较大。     

人类活动影响下的青海湖流域生态系统服务空间格局

人类活动改变生态格局和变化,进而影响生态系统服务。因此,探讨人类活动影响下的生态系统服务空间格局,对于区域生态安全、可持续发展和人类福祉等至关重要。以青海湖流域为研究区,基于InVEST模型计算了流域2018年产水量、水质净化、生境质量、土壤保持和碳储量五种生态系统服务,并分析了不同生态系统服务的空间自相关性、相互关系以及人类活动影响下的空间格局。结果表明：流域生境质量整体较好,土壤流失整体较小。碳储量受植被覆盖的影响存在明显空间差异。农业生态系统和城镇生态系统氮、磷负荷较高。产水量环湖区和山区差异明显;产水量、碳储量和生境质量的Moran's I分别为0.786、0.742和0.705,空间聚集性最强,氮负荷最弱;协同关系主要表现在氮负荷与磷负荷、碳储量与生境质量、产水量与土壤流失之间。权衡关系主要是生境质量与产水量和氮负荷,碳储量与产水量和土壤流失之间;碳储量、生境质量和土壤流失随人类活动的增强呈现递减趋势。氮、磷负荷随人类活动的增强呈现递增趋势。人类活动通过改变不透水表面进而影响产水量。通过高分辨率遥感影像精细化定量描述人类活动以及详细探讨人类活动影响下各生态系统服务空间格局、聚集程度,可为流域科学评价生态系统服务、生态环境保护及可持续发展提供依据。     

全球生态系统服务的状况与趋势

简要介绍了千年生态系统评估（MA）状况与趋势工作组的报告《生态系统与人类福祉：现状与趋势》中的第2部分，即“对生态系统服务的评估”。该部分主要对全球生态系统服务在20世纪末的总体状况，以及它们在20世纪后半叶的主要变化趋势进行了评估。评估结果表明，在MA明确评估的24项服务中，15项处于下降趋势，约占60%；4项处于上升趋势，约占18%；其余5项（约占22%）存在显著的空间或时间差异，即在有些地区（时段）处于上升趋势，而在另外一些地区（时段）处于下降趋势。这些变化主要表现在：①全球谷类作物和牲畜等方面的生态系统服务已经取得了显著的提高，但同时却对淡水资源和调控害虫等方面的服务造成了巨大的损害；② 按照当前的捕捞速度，野生鱼类资源已经无法承受人类的持续捕捞；③ 许多地区的淡水资源已经不能满足人类和生态系统的需求，如果延续当前的水资源利用模式，供需之间的差距将会继续扩大；④ 在对污染物质进行无害化处理、保持养分平衡、调控自然灾害，以及控制害虫、疾病与入侵生物的爆发等方面，许多生态系统的调节服务已经呈现出明显的下降趋势；⑤作为生态系统提供供给服务、调节服务和文化服务的基础条件，全球生态系统的支持服务出现了复杂的变化趋势。     

The urban political ecology of plastic bag waste problem in Nairobi, Kenya

Over 24 million plastic bags are consumed in Kenya monthly. More than half of the bags end up in the solid waste stream. Plastic bags now constitute the biggest challenge to solid waste management in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya and home to three million people. As a result, plastic bag waste has attracted great political and public attention, especially because the waste has myriad unique environmental problems. This paper seeks to unravel the problem of plastic bag waste in Nairobi through an urban political ecological perspective. Urban political ecology has done much to excavate economic, political, and cultural processes, as well as ecological dynamics that create and re-create urban environments. Little has been done in this context with respect to urban solid waste problems, with the exception of urban political ecology of environmental justice. However, research done within the context of urban political ecology of environmental justice has mainly focused on solid waste problems in the Western World, particularly USA. Drawing on research conducted in Nairobi, as well literature on business and politics, and solid waste management in Kenya, this paper examines the nature of plastic bag waste problem, its political–economic roots and implications for environmental justice.     

杭州西湖生态系统服务价值评估

基于市场价格法、影子工程法、污染防治成本法、旅行费用法、成果参照法、等效益替代法和条件价值法等方法,对杭州西湖物质生产、涵养水源、水质净化、休闲旅游、文化科研教育、蒸腾吸热、栖息地、存在价值、选择价值和遗产价值等进行货币化评估。计算得杭州西湖生态系统服务总价值为7 357 624.7万元/a,是杭州市国民生产总值的10.5%。其中休闲旅游价值量最大(7 315 760.2万元/a),占生态系统服务总价值的99.431%,其次是蒸腾吸热价值(13 864.2万元/a),占0.188%。杭州西湖的生态系统服务功能主要是休闲旅游,其经济价值的核算有利于城市生态经济账户的构建,为城市的可持续发展提供科学参考。     

Wild horses and the political ecology of nature restoration in the Missouri Ozarks

From 1990 to 1996, the National Park Service and residents living near the Ozark National Scenic Riverways in south-central Missouri clashed over the federal agency’s intention to remove 25-30 wild horses from the protected area. The struggle was carried out in various legal and legislative arenas, the media, and in community protests and meetings. The dispute ended only with Congressional approval of the 1996 Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act, which included an amendment ordering an end to any removal efforts.This article focuses on the contested social constructions of the horses themselves. To government scientists and managers, the animals represented a feral and exotic species with no legitimate place in agency-mandated ecosystem management and restoration scenarios. To many local members of the Missouri Wild Horse League, which contested the removal, the horses had critical historical and cultural importance as icons of regional identity, history and personal experience, and as core symbols of communities increasingly politically and economically marginalized.Local disputes with environmental groups and agencies concerned with Ozark ecosystem preservation and restoration have become more pronounced and numerous over the past two decades. This article approaches citizen opposition to environmental agendas not as an anti-environmental movement, but as a contemporary effort of marginalized groups to identify sources of economic, political, and social loss, and symbols of local identity and power. The wild horse issue reveals wider structural divides, and thus speaks to the question of which social groups shall have the power to impose their visions of the landscape and political economy.     

北京延庆世界地质公园生态系统服务价值评价和生态地质调查工作建议

保护区域生态环境是世界地质公园主要功能之一。建立世界地质公园有利于促进区域生态环境保护,促进人与自然和谐共生。研究世界地质公园的生态系统服务价值可为提升世界地质公园的生态功能提供技术支撑。基于Costanza等的全球生态系统服务价值单价模型,建立了中国生态系统服务价值单价,并以延庆世界地质公园为例,运用GlobeLand30数据和ArcGIS软件对2000—2020年间延庆世界地质公园及邻区的生态系统服务价值进行评估。近20年间延庆世界地质公园的生态系统服务总价值基本保持稳定, 2000年、2010年和2020年延庆世界地质公园园区生态系统服务价值分别为3040百万元人民币、3103百万元人民币和3086百万元人民币;在园区各类生态系统服务价值中以森林、草原和农田生态系统服务价值为主,占生态系统服务总价值的96%以上。针对园区生态系统特点,提出生态地质调查和生态保护建议：一是加强园区林分组成、林分结构、林分质量和林地土壤调查,提高森林生态系统质量;二是开展湿地地下水和水土流失监测,防止湿地进一步萎缩;三是连通妫水河流域和官厅水库水系,维护河流生态流量;四是基于系统观开展园区生态地质调查,协调开展园区山、水、林、田、湖、草等不同自然要素综合调查,提高生态系统服务总价值。五是建立跨部门、跨区域生态保护协调推进机制。     

祁连山地区生态系统服务间权衡的社会-生态环境响应机制研究

生态系统服务间权衡和协同关系存在显著的空间异质性,现有研究较少从社会-生态环境的角度进行分析,难以对将生态系统服务纳入实际政策制定过程中.以祁连山地区为研究区,利用InVEST模型和CASA模型对2019年五项调节服务(碳固定、碳储存、产水量、土壤保持和水质净化)和一项支持服务(生境质量)进行计算,结合多元回归树分析法...     

Producing hybrid forests in the Congo Basin: A political ecology of the landscape approach to conservation

Environmental conservation is increasingly operated through partnerships among state, private, and civil society actors, yet little is known empirically about how such collectives function and with what livelihood and governance outcomes. The landscape approach to conservation (known also as the ecosystem approach) is one such hybrid governance platform. Implemented worldwide over the past decade by international NGOs, the landscape approach employs the ‘ecosystem principles’ of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In spite of its prominence as a conservation and development strategy, little political ecology scholarship has considered the landscape approach. This article offers a case study of a conservation landscape in the Congo Basin, the Tri-National de la Sangha (TNS), which connects tropical forests in Cameroon, Republic of Congo, and Central African Republic. Led by NGOs, the TNS has since 2001 relied on partnerships among logging companies, safari hunters, the state, and local communities. Although the landscape approach purports to facilitate re-negotiations of user rights, resource access patterns in the TNS appear to have molded to pre-existing power relations. Rather than incorporating local concerns and capabilities into management, local knowledge is discredited and livelihoods are marginalized. As a result, management occurs through spatially-demarcated zones, contrasting the fluidity of interactions among diverse groups: both human (loggers, hunter-gatherers, safari guides, NGOs) and non-human (trees, elephants). These findings are situated within a burgeoning literature on neoliberal environmental governance, and suggest that ensuring ecologically and socially positive outcomes will require careful and iterative attention to linkages between ecological processes and evolving power dynamics.     

Probing the (in)compatibilities of social theory and policy relevance in Piers Blaikie’s political ecology

One of Piers Blaikie’s most important contributions to the development of political ecology is his critique of land and resource conservation policy in the global South. In this paper I trace the development of Blaikie’s ideas about the policy relevance of political ecology, focusing particularly on the challenges posed by the introduction of poststructural social theory into the field. I begin by revisiting Blaikie’s earlier critiques of environment and development policy. This will provide the departure point to explore how his thinking on the relationship of theory and policy and of academic and development practices has evolved in subsequent writings. I have invented two personas, “early Blaikie” and “late Blaikie”, to facilitate this task. Second, I want to probe some of the challenges that late Blaikie presents for doing political ecology research, to some extent by pitting early Blaikie against late Blaikie and letting them hash it out. Third, I turn to my own and others’ research and consultation experiences as a way to examine the possibilities for reconciling theoretically driven critiques with policy relevant research.     

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...     

The neoliberalization of ecosystem services: wetland mitigation banking and problems in environmental governance

Wetland mitigation banking is an American neoliberal environmental policy that has created a functioning market in `ecosystem services', commodities defined using the holistic measures of ecological science. The development of this market is discussed as a project of environmental governance, defined as the nation-state's regulation of ecological relations within its territory towards stabilizing capitalist relations of power and accumulation. I argue that the wetland banking industry serves as a bellwether that presages problems that other strategies of neoliberal environmental governance will experience. Ethnographic, economic and ecological data from the Chicago-area wetland banking industry inform a discussion of two major obstacles to neoliberal strategy: the problem of relying on ecological science to define the unit of trade, and the problem of aligning the somewhat independent relations of law, politics, markets and ecosystems across an array of spatial scales. Theoretical guidance is sought from recent work on `social natures' and from the Regulationist approach to institutional political economics.     

There’s nothing inherent about scale: political ecology, the local trap, and the politics of development in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper argues that research in political ecology would benefit from more explicit and careful attention to the question of scale and scalar politics. Although political ecologists have extensively considered scale as a methodological question, they have yet to develop an explicit theoretical approach to scale as an object of inquiry. We highlight one principal drawback to this underdeveloped approach to scale: what we call “the local trap” in which political ecologists assume that organization, policies, and action at the local scale are inherently more likely to have desired social and ecological effects than activities organized at other scales. Over the past 10 years or so, an increasingly sophisticated literature on scale has been developing among scholars in geography working in the political economy tradition. This literature has argued that scale is socially produced rather than ontologically given. Therefore, there is nothing inherent about any scale, and so the local scale cannot be intrinsically more desirable than other scales. We suggest that a greater engagement with this scale literature offers political ecology a theoretical way out of the local trap. As a first approximation of the kind of scalar analysis we advocate, we present a case study that examines the scalar politics that have shaped environmental change in the Brazilian Amazon.     

Permeable homes: A historical political ecology of insects and pesticides in US public housing

This paper traces changes in the political ecology of insects and chemicals in US public housing since Congress founded public housing in 1937. Drawing upon the literature of critical geographies of home, urban political ecology, and medical history, it argues that the constitution of “public” and “private” space within public housing was deeply entangled with pest control practices there. Prior to 1945, reformers treated the housing as a commons, in part compelled by the mobility of bedbugs and the pesticide used to combat them, both of which were seen as serious health threats. Managers were also motivated by social welfare ideologies, while residents eagerly assisted with communal control policies in order to achieve freedom from the health insults of bedbugs. Following 1945, however, new synthetic pesticides like DDT seemed to stay safely within one apartment unit, encouraging housing managers to abandon community-oriented pest control practices. Meanwhile, curtailed budgets, particularly after the Housing Act of 1949, left the infrastructure of public housing to decay, rendering units more physically permeable even as managers neglected the communities there. The new pesticides nearly eradicated bedbugs, but tenacious populations of German cockroaches blossomed thanks to the permeable buildings and synthetic pesticides. Residents grew increasingly resistant to pesticide use as they observed that cockroach populations went unabated. The paper serves as a case for applying political ecology frameworks to domestic spaces, and also argues that housing quality and domestic pesticide use are not merely private responsibilities but should be regarded as environmental justice issues.