ABSTRACT
Payments for environmental services (PES) is a mechanism designed to reward people for environmental services they provide (Zilberman, 2007). Individuals or communities receive benefits in return for providing services aimed at the sustainable use of natural resources. The payments can be in the form of money and/or other incentives, such as food, goods, training, jobs or improved tenure. Services are provided by more sustainable use, or avoidance of the use, of natural resources, and may involve protection of soil, forest or watershed (Aylward et al., 1998), biodiversity conservation (Ferraro and Kiss, 2002), carbon (May et al., 2004) and/or landscape beautification (Dobbs and Pretty, 2008). An example is the cash payment by a water bottling company to land users for their “services” in improved management of a watershed, to protect water quality.
