Payments for Ecosystem Services in Latin America in the context of REDD (PESILA-REDD)

The PESILA-REDD project (2011-2014) has studied the cost-effectiveness and legitimacy of payments for ecosystem services (PES) from forests as a component of measures to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in Costa Rica and Colombia. The project has tested methods for before-after-control-impact (BACI) evaluation at local and national level. It has conducted institutional analyses of PES schemes in both countries and evaluated them in the light of the developing international REDD+ agenda. Barton et al. (in prep) discusses how payments for ecosystem services should be seen as a policymix, rather than a market-based instrument. Based on an analysis of the Costa Rica PES programme they show how Eleanor Ostrom?s Institutional Analysis and Design (IAD) framework can be used to assess PES as a mix of ?rules-in-use?. Porras et al. (2012, 2013) analyse the development of the PES idea in Costa Rica?s over the last 20 years since the Rio Conference of 1992. They document how PES evolved from forest management subsidy schemes as the result of a number of policy agendas, including conservation movements reaction to the world?s highest deforestation rates in the 1980s, but also as a reaction to financial crisis and structural adjustment. Benavides and Barton (2014) develop a tool for evaluating the PES eligibility scores of properties based on the multi-criteria scoring approach for ranking PES applications introduced in 2013. Robalino et al. (in press) estimate the effects on deforestation that resulted from policy interactions between parks and payments and between park buffers and payments in Costa Rica between 2000 and 2005. Zapata et al. (in press) used matching methods to evaluate PES and Technical Extension (TE) for silvopastoral systems (SPS) in livestock landscapes in Colombia in 2003-2011. Støen et al. (in press) examine forest governance in Latin America with a focus on different strategies for implementing REDD+. Rosendal og Schei (2014) evaluate the possible effects of the international REDD+ agenda on Costa Rica?s PES programme. Støen (2015) compares the participatory process of REDD+ in Colombia and Costa Rica in more detail. Five post-graduate studies were supported by the project. Solarte, A. is finishing a Ph.D. entitled ?Impact assessment of payment for environmental services through an index of eco-efficiency in livestock farms at La Vieja basin Quindio and Valle del Cauca, Colombia? . In addition, four M.Sc. theses have been completed within the project. Vingelsgård Rugtveit, S. (2012) evaluated the transaction costs of PES in the Hojancha region of Costa Rica. Irma Mariela Morales Solís Rosas (2012) evaluated PES in Hojancha Costa Rica using the social-ecological-systems framework. Julian Valentin Michel (2012) evaluated neighbourhood effects of PES in Sarapiqui, Costa Rica. Zapata Arango, Y.C. (2012) evaluated impacts of PES on silvopastoral systems in Colombia.

PESILA-REDD will employ integrated methodology to address gaps in the evaluation of payments for environmental services (PES) and their cost-effectiveness in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) in developing countries. T he proposal?s scientific innovation lies in bringing together novel quantitative impact evaluation (IE) methods, with qualitative policy assessment methods, to address six specific methodological challenges: (1) PES policy enabling conditions, (2) transfe rability of impact evaluations between governance contexts, (3) trade-offs between environmental services, (4) controlling for sampling bias in quasi-experiments, (5) spill-over and neighbourhood effects and (6) determination of policy benchmarks. Case s tudies will be conducted in Costa Rica and Colombia.