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.     

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.     

Introduction: Interaction between environment and fisheries—The role of stakeholder participation

This paper is an introduction to the special issue on a role of participation in dealing with the interactions between environment and fisheries. In this introduction, we explore the recent discussion on the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management (EBAFM) and extract important points for implementation of EBAFM from the social science literature on participation and participatory processes in environmental management. The introduction finishes by describing the analytical framework for studying participatory processes.     

A complicated relationship: Stakeholder participation and the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management

The relationship between stakeholder participation (SP) and the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management (EBAFM) is often taken for granted, but is actually very complicated. The literature reveals five possible interpretations of this relationship: that they are (1) logically linked; (2) ethically linked; (3) instrumentally linked; (4) complementarily linked and (5) antagonistically linked. We examine these five formulations in the light of recent research on interactions between fisheries and their environment and conclude that the SP/EBAFM relationship manifests itself as predominantly instrumental in character.     

基于GIS的土地利用规划公众参与研究

在介绍公众参与在土地利用规划中的地位、作用、方式的基础上,提出将GIS应用于土地利用规划公众参与,提出了GIS辅助土地利用规划公众参与的主要功能,对照国内外GIS应用探讨了GIS辅助土地利用规划公众参与的模式,结合土地利用规划各阶段公众参与的特点提出的GIS辅助土地利用规划公众参与的框架。     

我国城市规划中的公众参与研究

公众参与是随着政治文明和法制建设不断成熟、发展而产生的一种民主理念,已经成为城市规划工作中一项必不可少的内容。文章就我国城市规划中公众参与的现状提出我国城市规划过程中公众参与的必要性和紧迫性,总结出我国现阶段公众参与的现状与问题,并提出对策和合理化建议,从而把公众参与真正落实到我国的城市规划过程当中。     

轨道交通规划环境影响评价公众参与的探讨

公众参与是环境影响评价的重要内容,城市轨道交通规划环评不同于一般的建设项目,其线路一般选择在城市中心繁华地区、城市交通主干道,环境影响的范围较广,城市轨道交通规划环境影响评价公众参与的广度和深度均应比建设项目环境影响评价公众参与的要求高,本文对轨道交通规划环境影响评价公众参与的必要性进行了阐述,其中包括公众参与是轨道交通规划环境影响评价过程的重要组成部分和现阶段社会主义民主的充分体现;是提高公众环境意识、化解社会矛盾和提高轨道交通规划环境影响评价有效性的重要途径。     

Sometimes you cannot make it on your own; drivers and scenarios for regional cooperation in implementing the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive

Implementing the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive explicitly calls for regional cooperation between the EU Member States in the different regional seas. This regional cooperation, although set in a general framework of EU Member States and non-EU states utilising existing Regional Sea Conventions as focal point, develops along different tracks. Based on a series of interviews with different stakeholder groups in the different regional seas the drivers for this regional cooperation were determined. These drivers were used to develop a set of scenarios to depict possible ways and structures for cooperation at the different regional seas. In this paper the result of this analysis and the different scenarios developed are presented. The five scenarios developed were very helpful in elaborating alternative governance models for regional cooperation. From the validation by the stakeholders it became clear that both the drivers used, as the scenarios developed were found to be relevant. There is no single solution that is going to fit all regional seas, or that is going to appeal to all stakeholders within a regional sea. Especially in this setting the scenario approach does help people to explore the full range of possibilities that exists for the development of alternative governance models that address two issues raised but not detailed in the MSFD: cooperation and participation.     

Global forest conservation initiatives as spaces for participation in Colombia and Costa Rica

This paper investigates the spaces for participation that have been created by readiness preparations launched in connection with the international initiative “Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” (REDD+) in Colombia and Costa Rica. I analyse the emergence of these spaces and who is leading the process in each country. My findings indicate that in Costa Rica, the public sector is leading preparation activities and creating the public spaces for participation in REDD to which private actors are invited. In Colombia on the other hand, NGOs, development assistance agencies and other private actors are leading the process and the state is the invited actor. I identify four factors that determine the scope of different actors’ possibilities to participate in the REDD+ spaces. These are (a) control of key resources, (b) ideological affinity, (c) the creation and dissemination of information and knowledge, and (d) the creation of norms to validate REDD+ pilot initiatives. The separation between these factors is not clear-cut and consequently they reinforce each other at different levels. The research presented here contributes to a better understanding of the implications that national REDD+ politics may have in the future functioning of the programme.     

Thirteen plus one: a comparison of global climate policy architectures

We critically review the Kyoto Protocol and thirteen alternative policy architectures for addressing the threat of global climate change. We employ six criteria to evaluate the policy proposals: environmental outcome, dynamic efficiency, cost-effectiveness, equity, flexibility in the presence of new information, and incentives for participation and compliance. The Kyoto Protocol does not fare well on a number of criteria, but none of the alternative proposals fare well along all six dimensions. We identify several major themes among the alternative proposals: Kyoto is “too little, too fast”; developing countries (DCs) should play a more substantial role and receive incentives to participate; implementation should focus on market-based approaches, especially those with price mechanisms; and participation and compliance incentives are inadequately addressed by most proposals. Our investigation reveals tensions among several of the evaluative criteria, such as between environmental outcome and efficiency, and between cost-effectiveness and incentives for participation and compliance.