Can PES and REDD+ match Willingness To Accept payments in contracts for reforestation and avoided forest degradation? The case of farmers in upland Bac Kan, Vietnam.
19/11/18 03:57PM
Martin Reinhardt Nielsen, Ida Theilade, Henrik Meilby, Nguyen Hai Nui and Nguyen Thanh Lam. Land Use Policy, 2018, volume 79, pp. 822-833.
Abstract: REDD+ (Reduced
Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) social safeguards
promote improvement of local communities’
livelihoods. However, discussion on benefit sharing in REDD+ has
largely focused on coefficients for differentiated distribution of
available funds. The question of economic incentives required to
voluntarily establish and maintain tree cover has received
limited attention. Using contingent evaluation, we elicited
Willingness-To-Accept compensation for entering into contracts requiring
farmers to 1) establish plantations, 2) abstain from logging mature
plantations and 3) refrain from cutting indigenous hardwood
trees in Ba Be and Na Ri districts in Bac Kan province, Vietnam. We
found average WTA payments in the range of 231–402 USD ha−1, 256–414 USD
ha−1 year−1 and 387–594 USD ha−1 year−1 in these three scenarios, with
WTA payments significantly higher in Ba Be district,
characterised as poorer than Na Ri. Published estimates suggest
payments of 38–43 USD ha−1 year−1 from PFES (Paymnent for Forest
Ecosystem Services), REDD+ and government support combined and a one-off
payment of 300 USD ha−1 from government reforestation
schemes. Hence, the inability to match WTA levels suggests a bleak
outlook for PFES or REDD+ projects aiming to comply with social
safeguard measures to protect rural household welfare. However, we note
that everyone in the sample was willing to engage in
these contracts given compensation.