Description

(Excerpt from Introduction): This report Outlines the evolution of the Mexican PES program from the original proposal through the first two years of the program’s implementation. The first section will provide background information on deforestation and potential environmental services in Mexico. Section 2 presents a political economy analysis of the tortuous path the program traveled through Mexico’s legislative and administrative structures. The third section focuses on the recipients of the pilot program, including results from a survey of participants as well as indepth community case studies. Section 4 which puts the Mexican PES experience in a conceptual framework focused on accountability mechanisms between different actors in the process of the provision of environmental services. Based upon this framework, we then extract in section 5 lessons from the Mexican experience, including possible alternative program designs to address some of the problems encountered in its implementation.

Table of Contents:

I. Introduction II. Deforestation in Mexico and the environmental services III. The evolution of Mexico’s PES program for hydrological services IV. Results of implementation, 2003-2004 V. Putting the Mexican Experience into Perspective: A Conceptual Framework VI. Learning from the Mexican Experience

Additional description: The Payments for Environmental Services process was examined in 11 communities from the Mexican states of Michoacan, Puebla, Veracruz, Durango, Chihuahua, and Coahuila. The majority of PES participants were communities covering 493 to over 10,000 hectares. An attempt was made to determine how the activities in the forested land have changed since enrolling in the PES program. One concern found was that in many cases the communities did not have assistance in developing their implementation plan for the PES. Additionally the case studies looked at payment distributions, altered community dynamics, misunderstanding of the program, corruption, and shifting of production lands as a result of the conservation program.