Description

This presentation describes several experiences with payments for environmental services from Latin America, including water payments in Quito, Ecuador, that are used to conserve the mountain areas from which the city draws most of its water. The profiled projects are:

– Water user associations in the Cauca Valley, Colombia, which provide funding for activities such as land acquisition, erosion control, water source protection, environmental education, and community development.

– Case of Quito Watershed Fund, Ecuador: Water comes from several ecological reserves and national protected areas. This program links water users (drinking water, irrigation, energy generation and recreation) to the conservation of water sources by including the cost of protection in the price of water.

– Case of Pimampiro, Ecuador: Development of a payment mechanism for drinking water to protect environmental service of water provision

– Case of PROFAFOR, Ecuador: financing reforestation to earn carbon credits