This thesis is organized in four different research questions that taken together aim to contribute to PES conceptualization and implementation debates at three analytical levels: discursive, institutional, and individual. The discursive level of analysis locates the focus of the research on the ideas or conceptualizations and shared beliefs about PES.
The second analytical level focuses on institutional change in PES practices as its unit of analysis. And the individual level of analysis situates its analysis on the individual and the decision-making process.
Table 1.1 presents the research questions guiding this dissertation and their corresponding level of analysis.
Question 1: How is PES conceptualized in Colombia?
This question is addressed in Chapter Three and it is answered through the implementation of Q-methodology in four different sites in Colombia. This method allows for the systematic study of perceptions using a structured protocol based on the ranking of opinion statements. Findings show the existence of three PES discourses
Chapter No. and Question Level of analysis
Ch. 3 - How is PES conceptualized in Colombia? Discursive
Ch. 4 -What drives institutional change in PES? Institutional Ch. 5 -What is the relationship between types of PES and
motivation crowding? Individual
Ch. 6 -What is the relationship between deforestation and
pro-environmental motivations? Individual
Colombia. These discourses vary in their degree of support they lend to PES as a policy tool, in the relative importance given to environmental vs. social or development-related objectives, the likely role of payments in altering pro-environmental motivations, and the effectiveness of PES compared to other policy options. Overall, the discourses identified suggest a high level of acceptance of PES which might ease its expansion and upscaling in the country over time.
Question 2: What drives institutional change in PES?
This question is answered in Chapter Four by analysing the evolution of the first-publicly funded PES scheme in Colombia “Yo Protejo, agua para todos” (YPAT). This chapter identifies the main driving factors of changes in the design of YPAT and how these changes have raised equity and motivation-crowding concerns among participants who were removed from the programme. Based on semi-structured interviews with relevant programme stakeholders and survey data from former participants, I identify three driving factors of design changes over time, namely: the learning derived from experience in the earlier phases of the programme; the entrance of a new experienced stakeholder who introduced a discursive shift within the scheme; and changes in the national environmental regulation. Results suggest that the programme became increasingly sensitive to equity considerations over time and that unexpectedly, exclusion from the programme did not negatively affect pro-environmental motivations among removed participants.
Question 3: What is the relationship between types of PES and motivation crowding?
This question is addressed in Chapter Five on the basis of an economic experiment and a motivations survey implemented among farmers dwelling in an active agricultural frontier in south-west Colombia, where PES schemes are expected to be implemented in the near future. This chapter examines how different types of PES (e.g., individual, collective and premium-price) affect conservation behaviour and pro-environmental motivations. Findings show that payments affect conservation behaviours and motivations in different directions, thus highlighting the need to analytically separate these two aspects. Results also provide evidence to demonstrate that PES effectiveness is highly sensitive to its design.
Question 4 What is the relationship between deforestation and pro-environmental motivations?
This question is answered in Chapter Six on the basis of quantitative data on motivations and self-reported deforestation behaviour for a sub-sample of farmers that participated in the economic experiment in Chapter Five. In this chapter, we used a logistic regression model to assess the role of different biophysical, household and motivations variables in explaining deforestation behaviour. Results show that controlling for structural (e.g., altitude, distance to main roads, slope) and the household (e.g., income, education, economic activity) variables widely identified in the land use literature, intrinsic motivations are positively correlated with less self-reported deforestation. This finding provides further empirical support to the argument that motivations play a crucial role in conservation and land-use policies that target behavioural change such as Payments for Ecosystem Services. Further, this chapter highlights the importance of understanding the role of motivations as drivers of land-use change particularly in areas with low state
presence and low enforcement capacity in which deforestation and ES degradation is highly likely to occur.
This dissertation adopts a multi-disciplinary and multi-sited case study approach in Colombia (See Section 2.7) with the objective of capturing regional nuances in PES conceptualization and implementation across the country. Colombia stands out globally both for its high level of bio-cultural diversity and its increasing deforestation rates.
Despite its critical role in the provision of ecosystem services of global importance, more than 500,000 hectares of forest were cleared in Colombia between 2017 and 2018 and this trend is expected to increase in the following years. Unlike other countries in Latin America, Colombia does not have a national PES programme but several dispersed initiatives that vary in their intended scale and funding sources, and that operate from different logics. The field work for this dissertation was conducted in different parts of Colombia and the choice of methods and particular case studies is justified and explained in Chapter Two.