Bonn Water Lecture on Payments for Ecosystem Services: peasants’ perspectives on conservation by Jean-Carlo Rodriguez
April 26, 2017 | 17:30 h - 19:00 h
We cordially invite you to our next Bonn Water Lecture with Jean-Carlo Rodriguez (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)). He will discuss the close links between power and ecosystem services in Latin America
Payments for Ecosystem Services: peasants’ perspectives on conservation
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2017, 5.00 - 6.30 p.m.
Venue: <link https: www.die-gdi.de ueber-das-die kontakt-anfahrt external-link-new-window external link in new>DIE, Tulpenfeld 6, 53113 Bonn
About this lecture:
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are cash or in-kind payments directed to peasants that conserve forests important to secure water quality and quantity. Since poverty overlaps greatly with ecosystem service hotspots in the global south, PES has been often presented as a poverty alleviation mechanism. However, are peasants really better-off because they receive conservation payments? Do they even participate on PES voluntarily? Are payments always fair? Does PES translate automatically in conservation practices?
Jean-Carlo Rodriguez presents the results of his empirical research on PES schemes in Colombia and Ecuador and shows that PES schemes are not neutral initiatives imposed upon blank canvases, but intersect with existing development trajectories and power relations. He warns against a merely economic approach to conservation which keeps blind eyes on the social and political dimensions, since PES can then contribute to reinforcing existing social disparity between farmers, eroding their community organization, undermining their traditional farming practices, and perpetuating inequalities in resource access of ecosystem service providers.
Biography of the speaker:
<link https: www.die-gdi.de jean-carlo-rodriguez-de-francisco external-link-new-window external link in new>Jean Carlo Rodriguez holds a PhD in Political Ecology and an MSc in Environmental Economics from Wageningen University. Jean Carlo is currently a researcher with the Environmental Policy and Natural Resources Management department at DIE. He is also an associated researcher with the Water Resources Management Group at Wageningen University. As an environmental scientist with a social perspective, his research interests include, among others, the analysis of socio-economic and political aspects of conservation (Payment for environmental services and REDD+), natural resource management policies and their impact on communities and the environment.
Please register until April 21, 2017 with <link>klimalog@die-gdi.de
