Seminario economía ambiental REES-EFD

Troubled encounters: Payments for ecosystem services, collective action and community leadership in Chiapas, Mexico

Esteve Corbera, profesor del Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Ambientales ICTA-UAB y co-director del Laboratorio para el Análisis de Sistemas Socio - Ecológicos de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

Resumen

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are a well-established conservation policy approach worldwide. In tropical countries, where forests are often owned and managed by rural communities, PES initiatives aim to incentivize the joint adoption of forest protection and sustainable management practices. However, not all communities might have the will or capacity to maintain such practices over the long term. In this article we investigate how a context of weak collective action, uneven access to land rights, and contested leadership affects PES in a rural community of Chiapas, Mexico. We show that while around half of the community has engaged in PES through two distinct working groups, the rest has not participated and contests the extension of PES rules to the standing forests that are not targeted by payments. We argue that this incipient form of fragmented collective action on forest management results from PES accommodating a history of increasing individuation of the commons and challenged leaderships. However, by doing so PES also ignites social conflict, reifies existing tenure inequalities, and falls short in transforming local institutions so that the latter can deal more effectively with the contested interests that underpin the fate of community forests.

Fecha: viernes 16 de noviembre de 2018

Hora: 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Lugar: Salón SD 702.  Edificio Santo Domingo. Universidad de Los Andes. Calle 21 #1 - 20.