Abstract
‘Greening’ the economy requires the creation of new markets in ecological goods and services, and there exist today many different payment mechanisms that differ significantly in terms of their distributional outcomes. Laura Rival compares three case studies: a forest conservation scheme involving payments for ecosystem services (PES) in the state of Amazonas, Brazil; Ecuador's government-led PES aimed at avoiding carbon dioxide emissions by keeping oil in the ground; and a ten-year grassroots project in the state of Minas Geiras, Brazil, which combats social exclusion with the dissemination of agroecological practices among poor small-scale farmers to provide viable economic alternatives to out-migration. The three programmes result from the efforts of social actors who have sought to create innovative sustainability-enhancing institutions in order to achieve environmental and social policy integration.
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Notes
REDD: ‘Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation’. REDD+ includes additional activities such as ecosystem services derived from biodiversity conservation.
ProAmbiente was the first formal PES scheme established in Brazil. Small farmers were paid to minimize deforestation, the use of fire and experiment with agroforestry. Initiated by grassroots organizations, it was transferred to the federal government in 2004 but suffered from lack of sustained funding.
If a future government ever decided to exploit the oil, the money invested plus interests would be returned to the contributors with no more risks than repayment of the external debt.
Official negotiators stress that the amount of direct CO2 emissions that would be prevented with Y-ITT surpasses the annual emissions of France (373 million tons) or Brazil (332 million tons), with a total economic value of US$8.067 billion.
57.3 percent live in the town and 42.7 percent in the surrounding rural areas. Agriculture constitutes only 5.7 percent of the municipality's economy, compared with 15 percent for mining and 74 percent for services.
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Compares three case studies of new markets in ecological goods and services
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Rival, L. Sustainable Development through Policy Integration in Latin America: A comparative approach. Development 55, 63–70 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2011.111
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2011.111