Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico.
Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Nat Commun. 2024 Oct 26;15(1):9252. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53643-1.
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are a widely used approach to incentivize conservation efforts such as avoided deforestation. Although PES effectiveness has received significant scholarly attention, how PES design modifications can improve program outcomes is less explored. We present findings from a randomized trial in Mexico that tested whether a PES contract that requires enrollees to enroll all of their forest is more effective than the traditional PES contract that allows them to choose which forest parcels to enroll. The modification's aim is to prevent landowners from enrolling only parcels they planned to conserve anyway while leaving aside other parcels to deforest. We find that the full-enrollment treatment significantly reduces deforestation compared to the traditional contract (41% less deforestation; p = 0.01). As a result, cost-effectiveness of the PES program quadruples. This result highlights the potential to substantially improve the efficacy of conservation payments through simple contract modifications.
生态系统服务付费（PES）是一种广泛应用的激励保护措施的方法，例如避免森林砍伐。尽管 PES 的有效性已经受到了大量学术关注，但 PES 设计的修改如何能改善项目结果的研究还较少。我们展示了墨西哥的一项随机试验的结果，该试验测试了要求参与者登记其所有森林的 PES 合同是否比允许他们选择要登记的森林地块的传统 PES 合同更有效。修改的目的是防止土地所有者只登记他们本来计划保护的地块，而将其他地块留作砍伐。我们发现，与传统合同相比，全面登记处理显著减少了森林砍伐（减少 41%；p=0.01）。因此，PES 计划的成本效益提高了四倍。这一结果凸显了通过简单的合同修改来大幅提高保护支付效率的潜力。
