ePEStemology: Towards a consolidation of social and ecological integrity for conservation and development in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES).

Over the past 15 years, payments for ecosystem services (PES) have become a leading tool to advance both conservation and sustainable livelihood transitions by offering economic incentives to protect soils, water, sequester carbon, and protect biodiversity. While premised as a market-based transaction, PES design and implementation is shaped by diverging value frameworks predicated on the intersection between contextually-specific socio-cultural relations, historical asymmetric relations of power in the governance of land and resources, emergent ecological processes, and ongoing economic land-use drivers. This research project will be the first attempt to systematically compile all peer-reviewed literature on PES research, resulting in the "ePEStemology" database to identify plural epistemologies in assessing PES success or failure. It will complement this database with in-depth case studies in Québec (Canada) and Nicaragua (building on the long-term development cooperation of the Flemish host institution) as two differing agrarian contexts experimenting with PES for more than 10 years. Research will be grounded in a transformative paradigm prioritizing social and environmental justice by holding scholars, practitioners, and research participants accountable to how knowledge is co-generated. The project also aims to initiate a global consortium, building off the database to foster transdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration on existing conservation projects around the world.

Keywords:POLITICAL ECOLOGY, ECOSYSTEM SERVICES, EPISTEMOLOGY, CONSERVATION

Disciplines:Ecosystem services, Natural resource management, Forest protection, Agricultural and natural resource economics, environmental and ecological economics, Development planning and policy, Social geography

Project type:Collaboration project