Paying for biodiversity conservation services in agricultural landscapes

This paper describes the contract mechanism developed for the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project (RISEMP). The project is testing the use of the payment-for-service mechanism to encourage the adoption of silvopastoral practices in three countries of central and south America, namely, Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It has created a mechanism that pays land users for the global environmental services they are generating, so that the additional income stream makes the proposed practices privately profitable.The RISEMP project demonstrates that direct contracts for biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes is not just a theoretical curiosity. Such contracts are possible, the author argues, if the link between land use and biodiversity is known.The paper highlights that it will be some time before the effectiveness of the mechanisms discussed in this paper can be determined. The intensive monitoring being undertaken will allow a detailed analysis of this effectiveness, including consideration of numerous exogenous factors that might affect it. This project will thus allow both an overall conclusion on the effectiveness of the approach and provide data for its refinement.The paper poses a number of key questions, some specific to the particular approach used in the RISEMP, and other that bear to the potential for replicating the approach on a wider scale, including:Will the desired land use changes be inducedWill changes in land use be sustainable?Will improvements in biodiversity conservation be significant?Will the poor benefit?How cost-effective is the PES approach in terms of biodiversity conservation?How can transaction costs be reduced?How can the approach be made sustainable?[adapted from author]