Allocating Group-Level Payments for Ecosystem Services: Experiences from a REDD+ Pilot in Tanzania

Elizabeth Robinson (), Heidi Albers, Razack Lokina and Charles Meshack
Additional contact information
Razack Lokina: Department of Economics, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, P.O. Box 35045, Tanzania
Charles Meshack: Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, Dar es Salaam, P.O. Box 23410, Tanzania

Resources, 2016, vol. 5, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: Payments for ecosystem services (PES) typically reward landowners for managing their land to provide ecosystem services that would not otherwise be provided. REDD+—Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation—is a form of PES aimed at decreasing carbon emissions from forest conversion and extraction in lower-income countries. A key challenge for REDD+ occurs when it is implemented at a group, rather than an individual landowner, level. Whilst achieving a group-level reduction relies on individuals changing their interaction with the forest, incentives are not aligned explicitly at the individual level. Rather, payments are made to a defined group as a single entity in exchange for verified reduced forest loss, as per a PES scheme. In this paper, we explore how REDD+ has been implemented in one multiple-village pilot in Tanzania with the village defining the group. Our findings suggest that considerable attention has been paid towards monitoring, reporting, verification (MRV), and equity. No explicit mechanism ensures individual compliance with the village-level PES, and few villages allocate funds for explicit enforcement efforts to protect the forest from illegal activities undertaken by individual group members or by outsiders. However, the development of village-level institutions, “social fencing,” and a shared future through equal REDD+ payments, factor into decisions that influence the level of compliance at the village level that the program will eventually achieve.

Keywords: PES; REDD; REDD+; collective decisions; Tanzania; forests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/5/4/43/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/5/4/43/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:5:y:2016:i:4:p:43-:d:84501

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().