Community-Based Payments for Ecosystem Services (CB-PES): Implications of community involvement for program outcomes

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs have become increasingly common throughout Latin America as a mechanism for incentivizing conservation and restoration of degraded lands. By directly engaging with communities, Community-Based PES (CB-PES) initiatives may be uniquely suited to overcome the challenges encountered by larger, national programs in terms of improving local outcomes and maintaining community support. Here, we present a conceptual framework for evaluating the contextual factors influencing community participation in PES and the outcomes of community participation. We apply the framework to analyze the published CB-PES literature. The literature demonstrates how a range of participatory mechanisms can improve social capital, community assets and the legitimacy of PES, which may feedback to improve community support over time. However, there is limited evidence that CB-PES improves environmental outcomes and mixed evidence for equity and economic efficiency outcomes. There is also wide variation in the level of community engagement in CB-PES. In some contexts, additional efforts may be needed to strengthen property rights and institutional capacity to increase community engagement in CB-PES.