PES Schemes’ Impacts on Livelihoods and Implications for REDD Activities

The preceding chapters have discussed in detail the impacts of individual PES schemes on livelihoods and the implications for the design of PES schemes. This chapter aims to draw out the main findings from individual cases to answer the two research questions posed in the first chapter, namely: What have been the impacts of PES schemes on livelihoods? What are the implications for the design of incentive mechanisms for REDD at the local level? These research questions are addressed with respect to the critical factors, noted in Chapter 1, that influence the risks and opportunities for livelihoods in PES schemes (Landell Mills and Porras, 2003; Pagiola et al., 2005; Corbera et al., 2007a; Pagiola et al., 2008; and Wunder, 2008): The nature and location of the environmental service, for instance, the percentage of poor households tends to be higher in remote areas where forests are often located; whether people have the recognized and secure resource rights generally needed to enter into PES agreements; whether workable regulatory frameworks exist for a specific environmental service; how many PES participants are poor and their ability to participate; the size of the payment for the provision of the environmental service; 244 TACCONI BOOK final.indb 244 12/11/10 12:00:47 PES schemes’ impacts and implications for REDD activities 245 finance and credit availability for sellers to cover their up-front costs of participation; the skills, education, power and negotiating capacity of environmental service sellers; availability of good market.