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Saying 'Yes' to PES

How payments for environmental services could protect the Brazilian Amazon

Brazilian Minister of the Environment Carlos Minc (left) with CIFOR scientists Jan Börner and Sven Wunder at the PES book launch

A new report published by the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment suggests that schemes promoting payments for environmental services (PES) could provide a strong incentive for protecting forests. Building on previous work at the level of the federal states of Amazonas and Mato Grosso, CIFOR’s Sven Wunder and Jan Börner from the Amazon Initiative (AI), together with colleagues Lígia Pereira of CIFOR and Marcus Rugnitz Tito of AI, were asked by the ministry to make an Amazon-wide assessment of PES options. They calculated the opportunity costs of forest conservation for each Amazonian municipality using official statistics of deforestation and land use. These economic results were then overlaid with historical deforestation data, projections of forest use, and data for services such as carbon storage and maintaining biodiversity. They also analysed land tenure data to determine where payments to legitimate landowners and forest users could be made for the conservation services provided by the forests they oversee.

The Ministry of the Environment published the resulting report on 3 March. At a ceremony to launch the book attended by about 100 people, the Brazilian Minister of the Environment Carlos Minc praised the potential of PES to become a mainstream tool in environmental management and its advantages in promoting both efficiency and equity. He congratulated the two first authors on the quality of the publication, and thanked them for their contribution to the sustainable development of the Amazon.

The study reached a number of conclusions relevant to the ongoing national debate. The good news is that ‘buying out’ more than half of the potential Amazon deforestation has become economically viable compared to the alternatives of cattle ranching and slash-and-burn agriculture. Even if just the carbon benefits are paid for, the prices currently offered at the Chicago Carbon Exchange are sufficiently competitive to make forest conservation a winning choice. The less good news is that land tenure remains insecure. Just under a quarter of the to-be-deforested land has the clear ownership necessary as an institutional precondition for PES. This percentage is likely to rise, however, thanks to the continued efforts of the Brazilian government to regularize Amazonian land tenure.

The Brazilian authorities are considering options for applying this innovative incentive tool for environmental management, both in the southern developed part of the country (for service such as watershed protection) and in the Amazon (for carbon and biodiversity services). Several laws on PES are currently being drafted to provide the necessary legal framework. External funding sources, such as the Norwegian government’s recently created Fundo Amazônia (Amazon Fund) for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), are increasing the resources available for PES in the Amazon.

For more information, please contact Sven Wunder (CIFOR):s.wunder@cgiar.org  or Jan Börner (Amazon Initiative): j.borner@cgiar.org