GLOBAL CONSERVATION PAYMENT INITIATIVES

This page is a work in progress and I welcome contributions and corrections. If you know of other conservation payment initiatives and would like to post information about them, please send me the relevant information at pferraro@gsu.edu .  Comments or complaints can also be sent to this address.

The initiatives are organized by country.  As the page grows, I expect I’ll eventually have to allow for searches of the posted documents (e.g., forest payments, wildlife payments, community, etc.), but for now you will have to depend on the brief blurbs to infer what the document or link is likely to contain.  Some of these initiatives are primarily a payment scheme and others are only dabbling with payments.  Some initiatives are more direct than others.  I emphasize initiatives that are primarily focused on biodiversity or habitat protection, but I also include payment initiatives for more broadly defined ecosystem services.

American Samoa

• The National Park of American Samoa is a 14-year-old 8,000-acre park, created under a lease agreement between the US and the governor of American Samoa (supposedly agreements also exist with each of the villages with lands in the park).  A recent bill proposed leasing an additional 2900 acres.

Australia

• I have been told that Barranyi National Park is Aboriginal freehold land and has been leased to the Northern Territory Government and, in 1985, Uluru National Park was officially returned to its traditional Aboriginal group, who then leased the area to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.  I have no details on these programs.
• The State of Victoria (Australia) is trialing a direct payment approach to conserving biodiversity on private land. Called BushTender it offers contracts to landholders for the maintenance and improvement of areas of native vegetation on their land. Commitments under these contracts include changes to land use and active management activities. In return the landholders receive periodic payments, subject to satisfactory completion of their annual obligations. BushTender uses an auction system to establish the contracts and the landholders' prices. This ensures that the best value for taxpayer money is obtained. For further information on BushTender visit the website or contact Michael Crowe (email Michael.Crowe@nre.vic.gov.au.)

Bolivia

• Conservation International uses a conservation concession to protect rain forest. [ English Version; Spanish Version]

Brazil

• In Acre, Brazil, rubber tappers are compensated for their role as forest stewards (unfortunately, this is not a direct payment, but rather an output subsidy on rubber.  I include it anyway in the hopes they’ll try a more direct payment in the future).
• As a way to give municipalities an incentive for hosting protected areas in their jurisdiction, the ICMS-Ecológico program in Brazil transfers tax revenue back to those municipalities that contain protected areas within their boundaries.  The more protected area, the more money.  The revenues, however, do not go directly to the protected areas.  Bernandes (1999) claimed that a number of states increased the extent of their protected areas in response to demands from local communities. (BernandesBrazil, Market-Based Innovations for Environmental Conservation in Brazil, Fiscal Incentives for Biodiversity Conservation: The ICMS Ecológico in Brazil)

China

• China has a “Forest Ecological Benefit Compensation Fund,” but as far as I can tell, this is not really a direct payment program, but rather an indirect subsidy for a specific kind of forestry activity (if someone has a different opinion, let me know). 

Colombia

• The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project is piloting the use of payments for environmental services as a means of encouraging a shift from unsustainable agricultural practices to sustainable silvo-pastoral practices.

Costa Rica

• Payments for Environmental Services (PSA). There are a number of documents available on the web about this program.  One useful summary is by John Kellenberg and Edgar Ortiz (see also Edgar Ortiz’s presentation).
• The public utility of Heredia is involved in paying upstream watershed forest protection.  (SCB Gamez, abstract Luis Gamez, gamez costarica)
• World Bank EcoMarkets Initiative:
• The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project is piloting the use of payments for environmental services as a means of encouraging a shift from unsustainable agricultural practices to sustainable silvo-pastoral practices.

Dominican Republic

• World Bank-supported initiative to pay for watershed services.

Ecuador

• World Bank-supported initiative to pay for watershed services.  
• Upstream landowner payments in the Quito, Cuenca and Pimampiro watersheds.

El Salvador

• World Bank-supported initiative to pay for watershed services.

Guiana Shield Ecoregion

• The Guiana Shield ecoregion extends from Colombia in the west through to the State of Amapa in Brazil in the east. It covers the Venezuelan States of Amazonas and Bolivar, encompasses all of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and continues into the ecologically associated areas of the Brazilian States of Para, Roraima and Amazonas. The Guiana Shield Initiative, currently based at the Netherlands Committee for IUCN (World Conservation Union). is working on a project to develop a financial mechanism to support payments to local ecosystem managers for ecological services provided by the large intact ecosystems of the Guiana Shield eco-region. http://www.guianashield.org  

Guyana

• Conservation International uses a conservation concession to protect rain forest. [ English Version; Spanish Version] 

Mexico

• In the process of designing a system of payments to Ejidos and Communidades in high poverty areas for the environmental services provided by their Temperate and Tropical forests emphasis on areas in which eco-friendly logging is not profitable).  Pilot projects to begin in 2003.  Contact Dr. Carlos Muñoz Piña (carmunoz@ine.gob.mx).
• The Packard Foundation donated more than $5 million to the Worldwide Fund for Nature to help the Mexican government rent or buy logging rights from local residents in areas of Monarch butterfly habitat.  I have heard that in 2000 the WWF began paying owners of land used by the butterflies who agree not to cut down their trees ($18/ha).  I could not find any documentation.
• An agreement was reached between six environmental organizations and a small community in Mexico.  The community will receive $250,000 over 15 years to preserve the nesting habitat of the western thick-billed parrot (Rhynchopsittapachyrhyncha) for conserving a 2400 hectare old-growth forest near the Cebadillas village in northern Chihuahua. and Norris, Scott. 2001. Crossing the Border: a U.S.-Mexican partnership to save the parrots of Cebadillas.  Conservation Biology in Practice 1(3): 33-38.

Mongolia

• Non-profit group sells rural resident handicrafts for premium and then plows premium back into payments for community performance in protecting snow leopards and their prey from poaching. 

Netherlands

• Government pays farmers to encourage bird breeding success.

Nicaragua

• The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project is piloting the use of payments for environmental services as a means of encouraging a shift from unsustainable agricultural practices to sustainable silvo-pastoral practices.

Russia

• Payments for Amur leopards and tigers in Siberia.  Although the initiative is mainly a livestock compensation program, there is some experimentation with paying for predator presence rather than livestock losses.  An initiative to pay rural residents for fire fighting performance is also under development (contact Michiel Hötte mhotte@inter.nl.net for more information).   http://www.amur-leopard.org/tigris_update.html

South Africa

• The contractual park of Richtersveld.  (RICHTERSVELD South Africa lease, RICHTERSVELD South Africa lease brief descrip)
• The contractual park of Makuleke.

Switzerland

• Payments for land conservation (biodiversity as side benefit).

United States

• Conservation Reserve Program (and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program). The CRP includes nearly 15 million hectares of cropland, most of which has been seeded to grass. But CRP also contains 800,000 ha of land managed for special wildlife practices, over 100,000 ha of wetlands, and 1 million hectares of land planted to trees, all of which benefit wild biodiversity (USDA 1997; OECD 1997a). Tree corridors established between formerly isolated woodlots have reduced the dispersal barriers to wildlife and lowered the degree of landscape fragmentation. (Conservation Reserve Program, Environmental Payments To Farmers: Issues of Program Design, The U.S. Experience With Land Retirement for Natural Resource Conservation, Evaluating Bids in the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program)

• The Grassland Reserve Program pays farmers and ranchers for short-term easements on grasslands.

• Grassland banks, such as the Malpai grass bank or the Valle Grande grass bank , attempt to use in-kind trades to achieve conservation objectives. For example, the Valle Grande grass bank acquires rights to good grazing land, then trades access to it to ranchers who agree to rest their current grazing lands and allow conservationists to rehabilitate the land with prescribed burns (not clear how incentives are maintained over time).

• The Wetlands Reserve Program pays landowners to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property.

• Delta Waterfowl Foundation’s Adopt-a-Pothole program pays farmers for protecting prairie potholes.

• Defenders of Wildlife has set up a Wolf Habitat Fund that awards landowners (in upper Midwest US) $5,000 if they allow wolves to raise pups on their land (Brown, 1999). Brown, P. 1999. Economic tools for ecological Stewardship.In: W.T. Sexton, A.J. Malk, R.C. Szaro, and N.C. Johnson (eds.), Ecological Stewardship: A Common Reference for Ecosystem Management, Volume III. New York: Elsevier Science.

• The Nature Conservancy not only does traditional land acquisition and easements, but it also has developed a program that allows farmers with small-scale forests to put trees (not the land) in a TNC-managed “forest bank” that is managed sustainability by a TNC-affiliated private company, in return for an annual payment, funded from sustainable management of the bank’s timber resources. So the residents receive an annual payment and the conservation group covers some or all of its costs through logging that is compatible with its environmental objectives (the logging company is for-profit and can allegedly take advantage of economies of scale by combining many small properties into a larger portfolio).

• The number of land trusts in the U.S. is huge. Go to Land Trust Alliance’s homepage.

• The Bobwhite Quail Initiative in Georgia (and OK too).

• Endangered bog turtles are protected by a conservation lease in Georgia.

World Bank

• Pagiola and Platais summary of World Bank-supported initiatives for the payment of environmental services.  See also

• The World Bank Institute has developed a training course on payments for environmental services targeted at technical personnel in ministries, conservation agencies, and NGOs involved in implementing such programs.

General Documents on the Topic

• Kiss, A., in press. Making biodiversity conservation a land use priority.  In:  Getting Biodiversity Projects to Work:  Towards More Effective Conservation and Development.  T. McShane and M. Wells, eds.  Columbia University Press, New York.

• Ferraro, P.J., R. Godoy, D. Karlan, W. Leonard, and D. Wilkie. 2002. Field Experiment To Assess The Effects Of Performance Payments On Ecosystem Conservation, Quality Of Life, And Territorial Rights of Indigenous Populations: A Proposal.

• Conrad, J.M. & Ferraro, P.J. 2001.  Habitat Conservation: the dynamics of direct and indirect payments. Environmental Policy Program Working Paper. Georgia State University. (revised May 2002)

• Ferraro, P.J. & R.D. Simpson. 2002. The Cost-effectiveness of Conservation Performance Payments.  Land Economics 78(3): 339-353. 

• Ferraro, P.J. 2001.  Global Habitat Protection:  limitations of development interventions and a role for conservation performance payments.  Conservation Biology 15(4): 990-1000. 

• Ferraro, P.J. & R.D. Simpson. 2001. Cost-effective Conservation:  a review of what works to preserve biodiversity. Resources 143: 17-20. 

• Ferraro, P.J. 2001. Reconciling the Long-term Conservation Needs of Large Mammals and Local Communities: conservation performance payments. In Terrestrial Ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a conservation assessment, eds., E. Wikramanayake, E. Dinerstein, and C.J. Loucks. Washington, D.C. : Island Press. 

• Ferraro, P.J., and A. Kiss. 2002. Direct Payments for Biodiversity Conservation. Science 298 (29 November): 1718-1719.

• Simpson, R. D. and R.A. Sedjo. 1996. Paying for the Conservation of Endangered Ecosystems:  a comparison of direct and indirect approaches. Environment and Development Economics 1:241-257.

• Faith, D. P., Carter, G., Cassis, G., Ferrier, S., Wilkie, L. (in press) Complementarity, biodiversity viability analysis, and policy-based algorithms for conservation. Environmental Science and Policy Abstract Excerpt - a policy-based algorithm for biodiversity conservation contracts [the article discusses, among other things, how conservation contracts might be allocated with a limited budget and discusses the BushTender auction in Australia]