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Payments for Environmental Services (PES) that give landowners a financial incentive
to manage their land to provide valuable environmental services may provide an efficient
way to conserve forest land and improve the livelihoods of landowners receiving payments.
While these programs appear promising, little rigorous evaluation has been conducted
to learn about the impacts of PES on the environment or on the people and communities
involved. Fundación Natura Bolivia, a conservation NGO, plans to implement a PES program
in a new management area, accompanied by a study that aims to identify and understand
the impacts of PES.
Identifying the impacts of PES and determining why they occur requires baseline information
from a program site so that changes can be monitored as the program is implemented.
The objective of this research is to identify key environmental, social, economic,
and institutional indicators to include in the study and to design a survey instrument
to measure these indicators. This report is intended as a guide for Fundación Natura
Bolivia as they conduct this and future evaluations of their programs.
Key indicators were identified through a literature survey and extensive fieldwork
conducted in Bolivia in the summer of 2009. Environmental indicators include agricultural
land use, forest use, decision-making, and environmental awareness. Socioeconomic
indicators include household consumption, economic access, employment and income sources,
and non-income measures of wellbeing. Finally, institutional indicators include community
organizations and informal institutions, environmental norms and attitudes, and relationships
with outside organizations and other communities. A survey designed to measure these
indicators is included with this report, along with recommendations for survey design
and implementation.
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