Payments for ecosystem services in Amazonia. The challenge of land use heterogeneity in agricultural frontiers near Cruzeiro do Sul (Acre,Brazil)

Abstract

Amazonia became a target area for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives in deforestation. We analysed the implementation of a PES scheme in Acre (Brazil) by taking into account land use heterogeneity in an agricultural frontier. Justified by the modernisation of deforestation control policies, the programme promotes agricultural intensification through fire-free practices. In this way, the PES tends to focus on long-established settlements, where farmers are wealthier and the landscape is dominated by pasture. Agricultural intensification may be adapted to foster reforestation. In order to curb deforestation a specific policy is needed for targeting remote areas where initial stages of deforestation usually take place. Bypromoting only land sparing, PES programmes in Amazonia may lose sight oftheir socio-economic and environmental objectives due to limited spatial targeting.

Keywords:

• deforestation
• payments for ecosystem services
• agrobiodiversity
• REDD
• Amazonia

Notes

 1. Although Boliviaran countries (mainly Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador) reject PES on the assumption that nature cannot be marketed (COP 16, Cancun 2010).

 2. Apart from the national PES programme in Costa Rica and the federal ProAmbiente experience in Brazil, most PES programmes in Latin America have been designed in small-scale areas. Most initiatives for water management and forest conservation are implemented at the watershed scale (Pagiola et al. 2005, Southgate and Wunder 2009). Among the PES that have been implemented, two of the most studied cases are the REDD projects Noel Kempff in Bolivia and Bolsa Floresta in Amazonas state (Robertson and Wunder 2005, Cenamo et al. 2009).

 3. Namely the ProAmbiente programme (Mattos 2010) and the experience developed since 2005 by Lucas do Rio Verde municipality (Mato Grosso) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which aimed at social and environmental compliance by rural properties (Toni 2011).

 4. The municipality had 12,428 inhabitants in 2007 according to census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

 5. The INCRA database reveals average property sizes are 74 hectares in São Pedro and 23hectares in Arco Iris

 6. Landsat images 26/07/1986 (TM, source INPE), 22/06/1997 (TM, source GLCF), 21/08/2007 (TM, source INPE) were used. Geometric rectification was carried out on the 2007 image based on ground control points collected in the region using a GPS, using roads and intersections, as well as rivers and waterways. The resampling was done using anearest neighbour resampling algorithm. The 2007 image was then used as a base to which the remaining scenes were resampled.

 7. According our interviews in Arco Iris, settlement yields in new swidden fields range from 5000 to 8250 kg of cassava flour per hectare, while after herbaceous fallow in São Pedro and Buritirana, yields range from 2000 kg to 3500 kg.

 8. ANC (2008). R$1 = US$ 0.6, February 2011.

 9. Compensation is defined as carrying out reforestation or acquiring and protecting other dense forest areas, even those outside their property, in the same watershed. Exemption means payment of a fee that is proportional to the lack of legal reserve (passivo ambiental).

10. Our results are consistent with the study of Daniels et al. (2010), who showed that the spatial correlation between PES and pre-PES projects is due to existing social networks and institutional path dependency.