Sharing experiences about PES in Latin America

20-22 August 2009, CIFOR

From 20-22 August, CIFOR and partner organisations held an international seminar in Bogotá and Villa de Leyva (Colombia) entitled:  “Payments for environmental services: from pilot projects to extended programmes?” During the event, about 100 participants, including PES experts and environmental practitioners, presented pilots and consolidated initiatives in Latin America, and discussed the challenges of this conservation strategy, especially the pros and cons of focusing on larger-scale payments for environmental services (PES) programmes. “Large-scale government-financed PES programmes can potentially protect large areas at low transaction cost, but often they fall short of this potential,” said CIFOR scientist and project leader Sven Wunder. “Small-scale, user-financed programmes are generally more focused and targeted, and tend to be more cost-effective. So it is not always a good idea to scale up PES schemes. On the contrary, in some cases it may be recommendable to scale down.” 

To read more: http://economia.uniandes.edu.co/facultad/eventos_y_noticias/eventos/realizados_por_la_facultad/Seminario_Pagos_por_servicios_ambientales