Description

This paper discusses the development of Zimbabwe’s Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE). Implemented in 1989, it is one of the earliest examples of a PES (payments for environmental services) program. The authors describe the design, implementation, and effects of CAMPFIRE, and present five lessons that can be applied to other evolving PES schemes.

Contents:

1. Introduction 2. What is CAMPFIRE? 3. CAMPFIRE and payments for environmental services 3.1. Actors and services 3.2. What is being bought? 3.3. How are payments effected? 3.4. Financial and economic data 3.5. Conditionality, costs and scale of benefits 3.6. Baselines and additionality 3.7. Permanence, accounting and leakage 3.8. Participation of marginal groups 4. Discussion 4.1. Contrasts between CAMPFIRE and PES 4.2. Lessons from CAMPFIRE 4.2.1. Community-level commercial transactions can seldom be pursued in isolation 4.2.2. Non-differentiated payments weaken incentives 4.2.3. Start-up costs are high and may need to be underwritten 4.2.3.1. Competitive bidding allows producers to hold on to rents 4.2.4. Schemes must be flexible and adaptive 4.3. Next steps