Payment for Environmental Services and Unequal Resource Control in Pimampiro, Ecuador

Abstract

Payments for environmental services (PES) schemes are widely promoted to secure ecosystem services through incentives to the owners of land from which they are derived. Furthermore, they are increasingly proposed to foster conservation and poverty alleviation in the global South. In this article, we analyze the social relations that have shaped the design, implementation, and outcomes of a PES scheme in Pimampiro, Ecuador. While previous studies describe this case as successful, we show that the PES scheme reinforces existing social differences, erodes community organization, undermines traditional farming practices, and perpetuates inequalities in resource access in the “working” landscape inhabited by the upstream peasant community paid for watershed management. We argue that PES schemes are thus not neutral initiatives imposed upon blank canvases, but intersect with existing development trajectories and power relations. We conclude that analyses of PES need to look beyond conservation to critically examine local resource management and distribution.

Keywords:

• agrarian livelihoods
• Andes
• Ecuador
• inequality
• payments for environmental services
• peasant communities
• watershed
• working landscapes

Acknowledgments

This research was conducted under the auspices of the Justicia Hídrica Alliance and the collaboration of the people from Mariano Acosta. We thank four anonymous Society and Natural Resources reviewers for constructive comments that helped much improve the article. Any remaining shortcomings or errors are ours alone. Research funding from Wageningen University is also gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

The official title of the community is Nueva América Association for Agriculture and Livestock.

Huasipungeros provided labor in return for the right to cultivate a share of the owner's land.

The Cabildo comprises five members: president, vice-president, treasurer, trustee, and secretary.

There are 9 large landholders (>20 ha), 11 medium landholders (10–20 ha), and 7 small landholders (<10 ha).

For timber, light cutting for domestic uses is permitted.

At the time of writing (2012), only the PES scheme, the agroforestry scheme, and the mountain hut were in operation. Their management was dominated by the community's most influential family.

All translations from Spanish are by the authors.

Wealth is extremely relative in the Ecuadorian context: These large property owners are still peasant farmers, yet proportionally much better off than their neighbors.

In this case, land use restrictions do not emanate solely from PES but also from the Forestry Law. However, as we explained in this article, the PES scheme has been accompanied by the increased enforcement of the Forestry Law.

The sharecropping arrangement consists of land provided by one party, inputs provided by the other party, joint labor, and equal division of the produce.

There is also significant inequality between water rights holders belonging to the irrigation board: 5.1% of families (large producers) control 42% of the water rights (of which estates control 25%), while 95% (medium and small producers) possess 58% (with smallholders having just 0.14%) (Avellaneda and Villafuerte 2008).