|
Focus
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| Protection
Money: a New Approach to Rangeland Management |
Céline
Dutilly-Diane, Nancy McCarthy,
Francis Turkelboom, Adriana Bruggeman, Jim Tiedeman, Kenneth Street, and Gianluca Serra |
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Degradation
of natural resources affects
not only those who directly use these resources, but many others as well. Solution? Pay users to use resources more sustainably. |
 Livestock herders have little incentive to prevent over-grazing and rangeland degradation. |
| Who benefits? Well managed rangelands provide a range of services at different scales. | ||||
| Scale | Environmental services supplied | Benefits | Beneficiaries/users | |
| GLOBAL NATIONAL LOCAL |
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Carbon sequestration Plant and animal biodiversity Reduction in dust storms Aquifer recharge Flood reduction Increased water productivity Decrease in soil degradation Increase in plant biomass |
Mitigates global climate change Healthier resources for future generations Improved health, lower maintenance costs for infrastructure and industry, less damage to farming systems Increased water availability Less damage to infrastructure Higher livestock productivity |
International community, countries,
private firms Conservation groups, tourism industry, private firms Tourism industry, urban populations, governments Water users State (public infrastructure), utility companies, downstream population Local herders |
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What is PES?
The services that a healthy natural ecosystem provides are rarely appreciated until the damage becomes obvious. Often, land users do not consider these services when they make decisions on resource use, since they do not pay for them and receive no compensation for conserving them. And even when they understand the consequences, they are often forced to over-exploit resources simply to survive. For example, livestock can accelerate rangeland degradation in dry areas. Herders keep more animals than the land can support and often over-exploit grazing areas, because grazing is free, while animal feed is expensive.
A well-managed rangeland provides not only grazing for livestock, but various other services: carbon sequestration, conservation of plant and animal biodiversity, reduction of wind erosion (by reducing the frequency and severity of dust storms), and better water management (reducing surface runoff, reducing flood damage, recharging groundwater). Correspondingly, rangeland degradation affects not only the direct users (livestock herders) but also millions of others who benefit indirectly from environmental services.
The basic idea behind PES is that indirect beneficiaries should pay the direct users, thus providing them with a clear financial incentive to protect the range.
PES has been used elsewhere to manage forests and watersheds. If it can work on rangelands, the implications would be huge. Rangelands cover more than 750 million hectares across CWANA, and are the main source of livelihood for poor rural households. But most rangelands are degraded, and getting worse. Better management would improve food security and sustainability for millions of people; and even small improvements will yield enormous pay-offs.
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The problems of implementation
PES is fine in theory, but various problems must be sorted out before it can work in practice. Rangeland services operate at various scales, from local to global. That can make it hard to identify who should pay, and how much. For example, carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation benefit everyone including future generations. Since specific beneficiaries cannot be identified, it is impossible to recover payment. Nonetheless, as awareness grows, governments, international NGOs and even private companies are now willing to pay for these ‘global’ services.
Other environmental services are beneficial at local or regional scales, so beneficiaries could perhaps be identified and charged. For example, reduction in sedimentation will prevent damage to reservoirs and waterways and benefit specific communities who use this water.
The next requirement will be to establish the infrastructure needed for a ‘market’ in environmental services to develop, and to minimize transaction costs, e.g. the costs of identifying potential buyers, negotiating and enforcing contracts, monitoring and quantifying environmental services in order to set ‘prices’. If transaction costs are high, livestock herders will receive a smaller share of any funds collected through PES schemes.
If it is hard to identify who will pay, it is equally hard to identify who will receive PES payments. Most rangelands in CWANA are owned jointly by the community; and some are completely open-access, shared by several communities. Some users traditionally have more rights than others (e.g. residents vs seasonal migrants).
So how will PES payments be shared? First, effective mechanisms must be established for identifying current rights holders, to make sure poor and marginalized groups do not lose their pre-existing rights. These mechanisms must be developed keeping in mind possible changes in property rights systems, which are being discussed in several countries. Also, ways must be found to identify and enforce the responsibilities of each group of users, to manage the ecosystem sustainably.
Collective community action
To develop a PES framework, we need to understand what factors affect capacity at the local level to provide environmental services. Both individual and community are important. Capacity will depend on the individual's incentive to preserve or rehabilitate rangelands, as well as the community's ability to organize the supply of environmental services and enforce management/rehabilitation plans. Individual incentives will in turn depend on the technical options chosen. It is, therefore, crucial to make a proper economic analysis of the technologies and management options available.
PES planners must also consider how heterogeneity among rangeland users will affect individuals' incentives to comply with conservation/management programs. Rangeland users are usually a heterogeneous group, differing in terms of what rangeland products they rely on (forage, fuel wood, medicinal herbs), exploitation levels (herd sizes), degree of access and use, or total wealth (additional sources of income). Different types of users will obtain different benefits, so negotiating costs amongst them – and costs of collective action for implementing the program – will probably be high. The costs/benefits to an individual will determine whether the individual will participate; and will also affect the costs of monitoring and enforcement that the group as a whole will have to bear.
Will PES work?
Most rangelands in CWANA are affected by desertification, but solutions are not easy, for two reasons. First, most rangelands are communally owned, not private, and this raises a host of social, legal and economic issues. Second, this is a dry region, so many of the rangeland management options available in favorable areas are ruled out. This makes it all the more important to identify and evaluate alternative management and institutional options.
PES could be viable, provided it is carefully planned and implemented. ICARDA plans to develop a series of pilot sites in West Asia and North Africa, for more detailed studies on different approaches to rangeland management (including PES), and particularly on the institutional issues related to the provision of environmental services.
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Poor pastoral communities contribute to rangeland degradation – but are also its first victims. |
| ___________________________________________ | |
| Dr Céline Dutilly-Diane (c.dutilly-diane@cgiar.org) is a socio-economist, working in Aleppo on a joint appointment between ICARDA and CIRAD, France. Dr Nancy McCarthy is Research Fellow at IFPRI, USA. Dr Francis Turkelboom (f.turkelboom@cgiar.org), Dr Adriana Bruggeman (a.bruggeman@cgiar.org) and Dr Kenneth Street (k.street@cgiar.org) are rangeland, hydrology and genetic resources specialists, respectively, at ICARDA. Dr Jim Tiedeman is a US-based range ecologist. Dr Gianluca Serra is a conservation biologist in Italy. |
© 2008 International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
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