Abstract
The Evian bottled Natural Mineral Water Company in France initiated in the late 1980s a promising multisectorial water protection policy aiming at maintaining the Evian Natural Mineral Water (NMW) quality by promoting a sustainable development of its catchment area. The assessment illustrated in this chapter focuses on the payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme developed by the association for the protection of the catchment area of Evian mineral water (APIEME) with local farmers. It demonstrates how the Evian Company can maintain a land use and traditional agricultural practices on the catchment area presumed to preserve the quality of the Evian Natural Mineral Water, without buying any land around the catchment area, by financing agricultural related projects. It also demonstrates that the financial dimension of PES schemes may not be the most important one to explain their success. Defining precisely what is the issue, gathering all stakeholders, sharing knowledge and building trust are all important components of a successful PES, even if they are creating a system defined by high transaction costs. Lessons learned from the Evian case study should help designing and implementing PES schemes in Europe and contribute to the development of preventive policies.
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Notes
- 1.
CSEM, 2007, ‘L’eau minérale naturelle: Un produit naturel et protégé, une industrie responsable, un emballage recyclable’. Livre Blanc
- 2.
Abondance and Reblochon, two brands among the most famous of the French cheeses.
- 3.
The villages from the spring area benefit from an old French regulation that institutes a specific tax on bottled natural mineral waters such as Evian NMW. Thus the Evian Company gives money to these cities for each bottle of Evian sold while the villages of the catchment area do not receive anything.
- 4.
With the exception of a little part of the total budget of the APIEME that comes from subscriptions. It represents EUR 35,000 over the 19-year period of implementation, that is around EUR 170 per year per village.
- 5.
None of these related studies was published. Most of the information was confidential in the 1990s. One reason for this was the risk of misunderstanding. Communicating about a water quality preservation policy could have been counterproductive in that context. It was thus focused on experts or stakeholders capable of understanding these issues.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter is the result of discussions between all partners in the EPI-WATER consortium. It benefited from specific contributions of Pedro Andrés Garzon Delvaux and Verena Mattheiß, ACTeon. The author would like to thank Patrick Lachassagne and Jean-Jacques Beley from Danone Water France and Cathy Le Hec from the APIEME who shared most of the information.
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Defrance, P. (2015). Financial Compensation for Environmental Services: The Case of the Evian Natural Mineral Water (France). In: Lago, M., Mysiak, J., Gómez, C., Delacámara, G., Maziotis, A. (eds) Use of Economic Instruments in Water Policy. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18287-2_24
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