Are poor people excluded due to “too strict”

Protecting people and the environment: Lessons learnt from Br azil’s Bolsa Verde, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, South Africa and 56 other experiences 45 Mexico, were originally very restrictive and did not allow any use of the involved land. In Costa Rica, this changed with the introduction of agroforestry contracts permitting the sustainable use of the land by combining agricultural activities with forest conversation. In Mexico, PSAH now promotes management practices which allow for productive activities according to the Forest Management Plans The Solution Journal, 2012; FAO, 2013b. In Ecuador, subsistence hunting and gathering of non-timber products has always been allowed. Socio Bosque also facilitates participants’ access to credit due to agreements with the public rural development bank. In China, extraction of products from the forest has always been allowed, provided that the trees are mature. SLCP also promotes activities such as silviculture, cultivation of fruits, and livestock farming. Participants are officially granted the right to the products of their forests. All the programmes under review allow the sustainable use of land and can therefore be classified as asset-building schemes. However, no documentation was found indicating that training, skills development, or education elements take place regularly in Costa Rica, Mexico, and China. In Ecuador, capacity building workshops, e.g. on financial management and control and surveillance, are conducted by civil society organizations in which Socio Bosque has established alliances. They also support participants in developing agroforestry or agro-tourism activities. In South Africa, participants are obliged to take part in work-related as well as in health-related trainings. Bolsa Verde also allows for sustainable use of the land in line with the signed agreements. It also foresees environmental, social, technical, and professional training for participants to support the adoption of alternative land use. However, as of early 2014, no such trainings had been launched and it is not yet documented to what extent participants engage in alternative land use. It is important that people can rely on the continuation of a programme so that they can make long-term investments and develop long-term income strategies. Such guarantees are difficult in private programmes. In general, a buyer needs to be satisfied with the service to continue purchasing the service in the future. However, there might also be outside circumstances which could stop a company from buying ES. Also, donor-led schemes automatically end at some point, which might cause people to not engage in long- term investments. In government schemes, it is important to ensure that the programme will continue even after a change of government. Guaranteeing a programme’s continuation can be improved by enshrining the programme into law and thus creating a legal framework Wunder, 2005; RECOFTC, 2009; UN-REDD, 2013. All programmes under review, except for Ecuador, have been instituted by law. 39 The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 No. 202, requires that policies and programmes be built upon a strong legal basis as part of the concept of a rights-based approach. Regarding long-term planning, the duration of the individual contracts with the participants also needs to be considered. They need to be long enough for people to develop and implement sustainable alternative employment and income possibilities. In the programmes reviewed in this study, the durations range from two to eight years in China, five years in Mexico, five to 15 years in Costa Rica, and 20 years in Ecuador. In Mexico and Costa Rica, participants can reapply after the end of the contract, while in Ecuador contracts are automatically extended. The contracts with Bolsa Verde participants are only valid for up to two years. Although they can be extended, this initial period seems to be comparatively short for effectively changing land-use practices and developing reliable new sources of income. 39 The Ministerial Ordinance points to rights and principles foreseen in the Constitution. However, there is no specific law instituting the Socio Bosque programme. 46 Protecting people and the environment: Lessons learnt from Brazil’s Bolsa Verde, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, South Africa and 56 other experiences

5.2.3. Impacts on the community

A PES scheme can also strengthen or lead to the creation of community associations, especially if contracts are signed with the community or if agreements need to be negotiated on a collective basis. In the latter case, coordination between possible providers at the community level can give the individual more bargaining power and decrease transaction costs Pagiola et al., 2005; Leimona et al. 2009; Wunder 2005, Grieg-Gran et al. 2005; Rosa et al., 2004. However, community approaches can also cause conflicts and exclusion within the community. It could, for example, cause an inequitable sharing of benefits and conflicts within the community if not all members understand and behave according to the agreement. In the international literature, it has also been alerted that large cash injections into communities with weak institutional structures might increase fraud and cause social conflict de Koning, 2011. In Costa Rica, the trial to conclude group contracts was not successful in its first attempt as it caused conflicts as described earlier in this paper. It remains to be seen whether the new attempt at group contracts will be more successful. The community focus is an important feature of the Mexican programme. The emphasis on community contracts obliges communities to develop a common plan which needs collective decisions and collective management of forest resources. Thus, when applying collectively, a community needs to present an assembly agreement that shows approval and commitment of the community, as well as a plan on how to use funds that was approved by the whole group. This should prevent the exclusion of individual members. It seems that these approaches have improved the social capital of communities and that PSAH is an opportunity for communities to strengthen capacities and organization UN-Redd, 2013, p.32. In Ecuador, communities can also apply. Similar to the Mexican approach, the investment plan serves to increase transparency in the decision-making process and ensures that everyone is informed and included in the benefits. This is strengthened further as communities have to document the process of elaborating the investment plan and submit the common agreements made de Koning, 2011. In China, on the contrary, the rather top-down approach does not build upon community participation. In South Africa individual contractors apply for a project and select a team. Although eligible areas in Bolsa Verde are mainly community owned andor public land, the PES itself pays and approaches individual families within the community. It is therefore an open question whether the programme has an influence on the community or might even lead to conflicts between eligible and non-eligible families within one community. Hence, this question should be raised in a possible evaluation of the programme. Given that other international experiences and even Bolsa Floresta present specific policies to strengthen the respective communities, it could also be examined how Bolsa Verde could incorporate a community aspect in future.

5.2.4. Impacts on non-participating poor

As is often the case, not all poor people can participate in the PES. Thus, it is relevant to analyse whether those who do not participate are negatively affected by the PES scheme Wunder, 2005; Grieg-Gran et al. 2005; Leimona et al., 2009; Pagiola, 2005; FAO, 2011; RECOFTC, 2009. This refers mainly to non-eligible or non-reached people living in the targeted areas, but it can also include those living outside the targeted areas. The main negative impacts of concern for non-participating poor are a possible decrease of employment possibilities andor an increase in living costs. Regarding the first aspect, the poorest tend to be employed in the most environmental threatening activities e.g. logging, firewood and charcoal makers, extractors, farmhands, among others. As the objective of the PES is to stop these activities, people working in these sectors are likely to lose their income sources. However, if alternative land use is promoted that requires the same amount of labour or even demands more labour, this negative impact can be prevented.