Nature's contributions to people: socio-economic assessments of strategies to conserve natural capital and guide the sustainable provision and equitable distribution of ecosystem services in developing countries

Abstract

Includes bibliographical references.2023 Spring.Natural resources continue to be unsustainably used and their benefits inequitably shared. In many instances economic incentives and resource management approaches have not led to the sustainable use or equitable distribution of the benefits of natural resources such as fisheries and forests. This has occurred in part because policy makers and natural resource users and managers, particularly in developing countries, lack information about the outcomes and impacts of current economic incentives that drive natural resource use behavior and potential alternative strategies for resource governance and management. This dissertation uses theories and approaches from the discipline of natural resource economics to measure the benefits of natural resource use under current governance approaches, evaluate the effectiveness of popular natural resource conservation strategies, and propose options for improving the effectiveness of those strategies in developing countries, thus contributing scientific evidence to the body of literature on the effectiveness of natural resource management approaches. In three chapters, it evaluates: 1) the effectiveness of a PES scheme in securing additional provision of watershed ecosystem services, 2) the elasticity of supply of watershed ecosystem services as a function of payments for forest conservation, and 3) the use of an ecosystem services perspective to measure the distribution of benefits from wild capture fisheries to different stakeholder groups. Chapter 1 finds that PES impacts may be somewhat offset by leakages; Chapter 2 finds that participation in PES programs could be increased by higher payments, but the relationship between payments and participation is non-linear; and Chapter 3 that an ecosystem services perspective can shed new light on managing fisheries for greatest local benefits and sustainability. These three independent analyses improve our understanding of natural resource management by dissecting resource management concepts, building upon existing ecosystem service valuation and evaluation methods, and supplying empirical evidence to resource management debates