Payment for Ecosystem Services
Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) is an innovative concept in conservation-led development that EcoLogic is successfully implementing. Through PES arrangements, users of ecosystem services compensate the providers of those services. For example, instead of taking for granted a clean supply of water, payment is made to those maintaining the resources that make the availability of this water possible.
PES arrangements offer an excellent opportunity for linking local conservation efforts to regional and global markets that consume these services and can provide financial resources. Communities providing ecosystem services in Latin America are usually rural and poor. Due to a lack of alternatives, many have destroyed forests and rivers to meet their subsistence needs. PES opportunities provide a compelling alternative to degrading practices and make clear to both providers and users the real costs behind goods many of us take for granted. EcoLogic currently uses PES in two areas: water supply services and carbon sequestration.
Water Supply
Through its work with the Pico Bonito National Park Foundation, EcoLogic has helped establish a network of water boards at the village level that are connected to a regional water association that negotiates with the region's municipalities for fee-based services. Through this system of community enterprises, local stewards are receiving payments from downstream users in compensation for the watershed management services they provide. The water fees help finance infrastructure improvements to the water delivery system and present an opportunity for income generation.
In Guatemala, our partner Earth, Trees, Water is implementing PES in a different way: requiring users to volunteer time given for conservation efforts such as reforestation and forest patrolling. This form of compensation is carried out by 1,906 representatives from 40 water committees in 24 communities, who are simultaneously providers and users.
In Mexico, the difference between provider and end-user could not be more dramatic: the people of the Sierra de Guerrero, which provides 98% of the water to the city of Acapulco, remain poor while the tourism industry in the resort city continues to thrive.
In these areas, EcoLogic and its partners are working to strengthen market links between primary stewardship of resources and regional economic development.
Carbon Sequestration
Another type of PES involves the production and sale of carbon credits through carbon sequestration activities. When sequestered, carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere by becoming fixed in places where it can be stored for long periods of time. Trees, especially those in tropical forests, have been found to be very effective at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. As the Earth's lungs, healthy forests are able to capture and hold the greenhouse gases produced by our industries and our energy-intensive lifestyles.
Approximately 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions result from land use change - namely deforestation. Therefore, EcoLogic believes that forestry-based solutions to reducing emissions play an important role in combating global warming. Planting trees to increase this capacity and conserving forest so that this capacity is not further diminished, provides an important service to all of us concerned with the effects of global warming.
Through Pico Bonito Forests, a joint venture with the Pico Bonito National Park Foundation, EcoLogic is one of eight projects worldwide certified to produce carbon credits for sale in the regulated markets established through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. Buyers are signatory countries trying to meet their emission reduction commitments as set out by the Kyoto Protocol.
In addition to producing carbon credits for the regulated market, in 2008 EcoLogic will offer large-scale carbon offsets to organizations that are voluntarily seeking to reduce their carbon imprint. Much of the proven methodology EcoLogic has used in Pico Bonito Forests will be replicated in these projects ensuring that the highest certification and transparency standards are met. Our Carbon Plus Program: Offsets for the Voluntary Market will be available to organizations unable to neutralize their impact solely through efficiency and engineering efforts.
