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Gill Shepherd IUCN, United Kingdom
Gill Shepherd




  • Payments are too low to effect changes in behaviour


Dr. John Kazer Carbon Trust, United Kingdom

From a UK perspective, there are two broad approaches towards PES.

The first is long established and linked to the EU's common agriculture policy - the stewardship schemes run by Natural England that reward farmers for following certain specified pro-biodiversity etc. practices.  There is some on-going investigation towards expanding these schemes to encompass climate change mitigation.  The existing scheme, in my opinion, lacks for robust data and farm audit process regarding the measurable impact of the ecosystem services created.

The second is a more recent private, voluntary programme that I've been involved in.  Essentially I've been auditing large-scale, increasingly national-level farm carbon footprint measurement and management programmes - typically based around livestock.  These are not linked (as yet) to payments, but do show what might be involved in running a cost-effective PES.

For a livestock mitigation programme, the extent of data required and achieving suitable quality of data is critical - particularly when budgets are small.

For an arable mitigation programme, the key factors for me are balancing yield against inputs.  Anything which increases yield whilst maintaining or reducing the inputs required is a positive thing and can be measured quite cost effectively.  I would include in this list soil improvement as part of a sequestration programme - I believe that any benefit from such a programme will create much more value, more simply, for the farmer via lower costs and increased yields from better soil than carbon credits or direct PES.

PES in my view are typically best targeted at research, capacity building and farmer engagement programmes that will enable them to generate win-win scenarios of better soil and lower emissions accompanied by increased production and profits.

Adam Drucker Bioversity International, Italy
FSN Forum

Despite the existence of important ecosystem services specifically associated with the maintenance of agrobiodiversity (e.g. related to: agroecosystem resilience in the face of climate change and emerging pests and diseases; and the maintenance of gene flow, evolutionary processes and future option values, as well as underlying traditional knowledge and seed systems), PES schemes have, to date, largely ignored agrobiodiversity conservation issues per se. Instead they have tended to focus on carbon sequestration, wild biodiversity and water management.

Bioversity International and its partners have consequently been exploring innovative developing country applications of PES through an assessment of the potential of so-called “payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services” (PACS) to serve as a least-cost and pro-poor agrobiodiversity conservation incentive scheme.

Following the development of a conceptual framework and the identification of conservation priorities for a case study threatened Andean grain in Peru and Bolivia, competitive tenders (reverse auctions) were implemented across a number of communities in each country in 2010-2011 in order to determine farmer willingness to provide conservation services. Selection criteria were developed in order to facilitate the identification of preferred farmers/communities to undertake such services based on efficiency, effectiveness and equity (pro-poor) considerations (Narloch et al., 2011a; Narloch et al., 2011b)

Findings (see video, factsheets and journal articles indicated) show that farmers/communities were indeed willing to undertake a conservation services contract for the threatened genetic resources and that participation costs vary widely between communities, thereby creating opportunities to minimize intervention costs by selecting least-cost providers. In-kind, community-level rewards (rather than cash payments made to individuals) were shown to provide sufficient incentives and suggest that a number of them could be provided through existing government agricultural and educational development programmes. The circumstances under which such incentives may build upon rather than crowd-out pro-social behavior related to existing institutions of collective action was explored (Narloch et al., 2012; Midler et al., forthcoming). Research also revealed how tender selection protocols may be designed to account for local perceptions of fairness (i.e. accounting for such principles as proportionality, inclusiveness, consensus and distributional equality) in order to facilitate political acceptability and long-run sustainability of the intervention (Narloch et al., forthcoming)

The enthusiasm of the project participants to maintain the threatened genetic resources in future years, regardless of any further intervention (see farmer quotes in the PACS video) and their interest in exploring market development opportunities for the case study genetic resources, suggests that the potential for PACS to support national biodiversity policy implementation and make a significant contribution to agrobiodiversity conservation and use goals, as well as to improve poor farmer livelihoods, once it is up-scaled, continues to appear promising.

Future Research and Development

In addition to issues related to targeting, strategic prioritization (since not everything can be saved) and establishing scientifically rigorous relationships between specific conservation goals and actual ecosystem service provision, future research and development issues include consideration of the degree of potential complementarity between more conventional niche product/value chain development initiatives and PACS. The potential to use market development approaches as a cornerstone of a PACS-related wide-ranging cost-effective, diversity maximizing national agrobiodiversity management strategy (as opposed to the many examples of individual threatened crop and livestock genetic resources market development applications) remains to be explored.

Further Information:

A video, policy brief and a series of short fact sheets and technical notes in English and Spanish, as well as scientific articles related to PACS can be found on:

Adam Drucker


Dear moderators

1.       Contradiction on your arguments




3.      PES debate in literatures


4.      Our test on the debate


5.      How bad are bad national and international governances?


6.      Remarks


Philipp Aerni and Bernardete Neves Facilitators,
FSN Forum





c) the scope of PES and its applications.



Question about prior PES activities at FAO













c)    The scope of PES and its applications.





Greetings –

The project on “Remuneration of Positive Externalities (RPE): Payments for Environmental Services (PES) in the Agricultural and Food Sectors” is very worthwhile because it leads to more complete accounting for resources and other concerns that had not been valued adequately.

As the title indicates, the focus is on environmental services. This should lead us to ask, what other externalities are there? Are there other important issues that should not be ignored?

For example, are there cultural resources in the communities of food producers and food consumers that ought to be recognized?

Educational services to farmers, both formal and informal, surely are important.

Should the ability to pass debt to future generations be recognized as an externality?

Should the services of regulatory agencies be recognized as external factors that really ought to be paid for? Aren’t they required in any comprehensive view of food systems?

If attention is given to the ways in which industrial modes of food production can lead to environmental depletion and pollution, shouldn’t attention also be given to the ways in which those modes of production tend to concentrate wealth?

Shouldn’t attention be given to the fact that modern agriculture preferentially serves high income consumers?

Oliver De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, argues that food systems ought to have three major objectives:

·      First, food systems must ensure the availability of food for everyone, that is, supply must match world needs.

·      Second, agriculture must develop in ways that increase the incomes of smallholders.

·      Third, agriculture must not compromise its ability to satisfy future needs (De Schutter 2010).

Environmental services, one part of the third category, certainly are important, but they should be viewed in a broader context in which many different kinds of values are taken into account.

We have choices regarding how the products of agriculture ought to be valued. For a moment, imagine that agricultural produce was paid for on the basis of its nutritional value, its value in correcting inequities, and its value in protecting the physical environment. What would our food systems look like then? If these were the things we cared about deeply, the world would be a very different place.

Some methods used to take account of concerns about the physical environment might be adapted to take account of other types of issues that have been neglected. The first task would be to identify them. Then there is the need to weigh their importance.

We should also recognize the reality that different people would weigh the issues differently (Kent 1993). Often the environment is harmed because no one speaks for the environment. Similarly, hunger in the world persists partly because the hungry have little voice in deciding what should be regarded as important in modern agriculture.

Aloha, George Kent

Marcus Vinicius Alves Finco Federal University of Tocantins, Brazil
Marcus Vinicius

As the ‘forest standing’ has no economic value to the smallholders, their opportunity costs might lead towards deforestation. A ‘win-win’ approach could be achieved by paying farmers to sequester carbon, which sets up a situation where: CO2 is removed from the atmosphere (mitigation); high soil organic matter increases agro ecosystem resilience (adaptation); and improved soil fertility leads to better yields (production and income generation). If a carbon market successfully allows the trade of sequestered carbon on the international market, deforestation of native forests in tropical countries might decrease. If deforestation is business-as-usual (or the baseline scenario), then the conservation of native forests by farmers would implement change and generate additional positive externalities. Thus, REDD+ project would create a stimulus for the conservation of native forests and increase the amount of carbon sequestered and, therefore, decrease the amount of carbon that is emitted to the atmosphere.

Bellow you find the link of paper of mine that I sent to FAO couple of years ago about REDD+, payment for environmental services, social inclusion, food security and climate change in the Brazilian Amazon region.
Best regards
Marcus Finco, PhD
Professor at Federal University of Tocantins, Brazil

Prof. Conrado Lucas University, Angola

I remember that some 10years ago, FAO had launched an internal discussion on PES with many Departments involved,  based on interesting analysis of PES in agriculture. As a  reseacher, I would find very fruitful to measure how much progress has been achieved so far in understanding and promoting sounds systems given the raising concerns about,  not food production per se, but the quality of food produced, and environmental services have a great role to play.

Could FAO share with us findings from these discussions from the group (led if I remember well by Dr Mansur)?

Demetrio Miguel Castillo Universidad Experimental Felix Adam, Dominican Republic
Demetrio Miguel Castillo

En Nuestro País, República Dominicana es ahora cuando se ha iniciado el pago por servicios ambientales, sin embargo este concepto no ha contrinuido de forma efectiva con los manejos de recursos y su destino. Si bien es cierto que se han beneficiado una serie de elementos que son afines al gobierno como tal la mayoría no ha contado con esos aportes tan necesarios para mejorar los servicios y protección ambiental requerida en sus respectivas comunidades,. Se valora en prinicipio este aporte por servicios ambientales y se piensa que en un futuro inmediato y con mejores amnejos de fondos los servicios serán más efectivos y eficiebntes. Pero siempre recordando que los mejores protectores de esos servicios son las comunidades en las cuales se encuentran ubicados eseos valroes naturales.

Mr. Carlos Alborta Consultant, Bolivia (Plurinational State of)

See roughly the context. In the highlands of Peru, there are downstream water users in Canete and Jequetepeque basins. There are also upstream water keepers in both basins. The idea is to launch a PES/CES initiative in order to preserve the service and make it institutional sustainable by means of a mixed trust fund.

Water demand is normally defined by the amount of water required from the hydrological system from various uses and several users.

There are, distinctively, three major water users in the Canete and Jequetepeque river basins, (a) hydroelectrical companies whose demand is non-consumptive; (b) city dwellers whose demand is consumptive; (c) irrigation users whise demand is consumptive. There are even some rural  rates which are presently being paid.

Notice that the idea that power companies are going to be the greater contributors to the CES scheme is not fully valid. Their need for water is permanent but they do not deplete  the water available. You cannot say that water resources, in their case, diminish, degrade or change. After passing through their dams, e.g. Galllito Ciego,  that water can still be used by other or for other purposes.

Notice also that city dwellers already pay some small fee for the water available, very small indded. That is, they are not going to be keen on paying or contributiong further to the CES scheme proposed.

In the Canete and Jequetepeque river basins water competition is not terribly fierce. In both  basins you may argue that water is relatively abundant. Water prices have been estimated in willingness to pay studies as roughly between S./ 0.0011 - S./ 0.0018 per cubic meter, which is very low indeed.

Water users might be concerned with water decrease in availability. But, this is not foreseable in the future. The hydroelectrical concerns in both areas e.g. Platanal, have already taken provisions in order not to suffer in the next decade from water shortages or large variations. Industries in the cities around are not fully developed, unless some gold mining firm discovers this mineral in the basin. That latter is not yet in sight.

The need for water augmentation is not fully visible as water is, again, relatively plentiful.

See the reasoning of the PES/CES proposal. Incentives are needed to preserve the actual functioning of the basins; that is, to preserve the environmental service. Community contests are one technique if not the effective one in the field. Contests have proved to be (a) all competitive i.e. it is based on open community rules and regulations; (b) incentives can be monitored and geared according to the CES projects goals; (c) incentives are a prize on investment as opposed to a recurreent cost run by the project; (d) contests have proved to be successful in community management of natural resources (IFAD has plenty to support on this statement, particularly in Peru).

Community contests, in the context of natural resources management, have shown a gradualism which is led by project officials. Beneficiaries  have been prone to contests related to household improvement first, and then community assets (see PROMARENaA's, Corredor Puno Cuzco records (1990s and this decade).

Indeed water management contests are the creative and innovative way out of this riddle.

Here it goes.

Best regards,

Carlos ALBORTA (IFAD consultant)