Partnering and capacity development with local stakeholders in ecosystem service management

Although communities’ incentives to participate in payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes can be many, any variation on the PES theme requires a common understanding between contracting parties of what the contracts are about in a technical and operational sense. Contracts need to specify institutional arrangements and the capacities needed to make them work. PES contracts are often developed between ES beneficiaries, who are formally established and well informed of what needs to change in ES management on the one hand, and local communities, often not constituted in formally recognised groups and whose understanding of ES management is limited to what is locally relevant on the other hand. As PES-like contracts are new for most ES providers, this requires that steps be taken towards full free and prior informed consent of local communities for what is being proposed by outside stakeholders and intermediaries as solutions and the ensuing expectations and requirements from the communities (ES providers). These steps must be integrated into the designs.

---

• View source