Life On Earth || Blog No:10

 

FINANCE AND INCENTIVIZE SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT

 

Mobilize significant resources from all sources and at all levels to finance sustainable forest management and provide adequate incentives to developing countries to advance such management, including for conservation and reforestation.

Forests provide oxygen, clean water, and a variety of other essential services. But responsibly and sustainably managing them requires financing. UN SDG 15.B aims to finance and incentivize sustainable forest management. This includes providing financial resources to support sustainable forest management practices, as well as creating incentives for businesses and individuals to engage in sustainable forest management.

Important lessons learned from the development of payments for environmental services.

• Finding willing buyers is almost always the most important step in developing payments for environmental services.

• Credible and reliable governance and institutional arrangements are essential to link producers and buyers of environmental

 services. This is particularly true when there is little trust and understanding between them.

• With few exceptions (e.g., the voluntary carbon market), most voluntary mechanisms are small, have high transaction costs

 and deliver only modest improvements in conservation and rural incomes. Yet, they are effective in holding service providers.

 accountable. They work best in small areas and where good relationships exist between service providers and beneficiaries.

 An example of this is Ecuador, where water companies in cities pay farmers in catchment areas for watershed conservation.

• Mechanisms with major government involvement are usually larger, can be implemented quickly, and deliver significant

 changes. Examples of such mechanisms include the “Ecological VAT” in Brazil and various programs for payments for

 environmental services in Costa Rica.

• Mechanisms driven by regulation can generate significant funding. For example, “cap and trade” regulations on the

 emissions of greenhouse gases have promoted very large investments and trade in carbon credits. However, forestry

 activities have benefited only marginally from this regulation-driven market so far, due to the cost and complexity of

 procedures and limitations imposed within the regulations (e.g. reduced deforestation and improved forest management do

 not qualify as climate mitigation activities in the clean development mechanism at the moment).

• To implement payments for environmental services, supportive legal and institutional frameworks, clear property rights and

 technical assistance to small farmers and rural communities are required so that they can participate.

• Payments for environmental services are most efficient and effective when the producers, buyers and necessary

 management activities are clearly identified, payments are based on science, measurable improvements and where the costs.

 of implementing improved forest and land management are low.

• National governments are currently the most important buyers of environmental services and international agencies play an

 important catalytic role in market development and technical assistance.

 

REFRENCES:

1)   What works, and what doesn’t work? The challenge of creating effective applied conservation research in human-modified habitats

2)   Recent advances in studying vegetation at forest edges