With and without the market. Diversifying community conservation initiatives in the ejido of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Mexico

Los instrumentos de política basados en los mercados han ido adquiriendo importancia con el argumento de mejorar la efi cacia de la gobernanza ambiental. En México, como en muchas otras partes del mundo, la estrategia de conservación ha pasado de la implementación de instrumentos de comando y control a los programas integrados de conservación y desarrollo, para posteriormente aplicar instrumentos con lógica de mercado. En este artículo se analiza la estrategia múltiple de conservación comunitaria que ha implementado el ejido de Felipe Carrillo Puerto, en Quintana Roo, México. Esta estrategia no está basada en el uso exclusivo de un esquema de conservación, sino que utiliza un abanico de instrumentos, con lógicas diferenciadas, que apuntan hacia el fortalecimiento de una estrategia múltiple o diversifi cada de conservación comunitaria. Para fi nanciar un proyecto de secuestro de carbono, el ejido ha creado dos áreas de conservación comunitaria, un proyecto de ecoturismo y ha incluido una porción de su territorio en el Programa Nacional de Pago por Servicios Ambientales. Tener varios proyectos de conservación le ha permitido al ejido diversifi car y así reducir su dependencia a instituciones y proyectos externos.Palabras clave: conservación comunitaria, instrumentos basados en el mercado, secuestro de carbono, pago por servicios ecosistémicos.Market-based policy instruments have become increasingly important on the grounds of improving the effectiveness of environmental governance. In Mexico, as in many other parts of the world, conservation has passed from the instruments of command and control to the implementation of integrated conservation and development programs, and nowadays to market-based instruments. This article analyzes the community conservation strategy that has been implemented by the ejido of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Quintana Roo, Mexico. The strategy is not based on the use of a concrete conservation scheme, but rather it uses a range of instruments, with different logics, aimed at strengthening a multiple or diverse community conservation strategy. In order to finance a project of carbon sequestration, the ejido has created two community conservation areas, an ecotourism project and has included a portion of its territory in the National Payment for Environmental Services. Having several conservation projects has enabled the ejido to diversify and reduce its dependency on external projects and agents. Keywords: community conservation, market-based instruments, carbon off sets, payment for environmental services

Payments for ecosystem services and the fatal attraction of win-win solutions

In this commentary we critically discuss the suitability of payments for ecosystem services and the most important challenges they face. While such instruments can play a role in improving environmental governance, we argue that over-reliance on payments as win-win solutions might lead to ineffective outcomes, similar to earlier experience with integrated conservation and development projects. Our objective is to raise awareness, particularly among policy makers and practitioners, about the limitations of such instruments and to encourage a dialogue about the policy contexts in which they might be appropriate. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Site Fidelity in Space Use by Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

Animal home ranges may vary little in their size and location in the short term but nevertheless show more variability in the long term. We evaluated the degree of site fidelity of two groups of spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) over a 10- and 13-year period, respectively, in the northeastern Yucatan peninsula, Mexico. We used the Local Convex Hull method to estimate yearly home ranges and core areas (defined as the 60% probability contour) for the two groups. Home ranges varied from 7.7 to 49.6 ha and core areas varied from 3.1 to 9.2 ha. We evaluated the degree of site fidelity by quantifying the number of years in which different areas were used as either home ranges or core areas. Large tracts were used only as home ranges and only for a few years, whereas small areas were used as either core area or home range for the duration of the study. The sum of the yearly core areas coincided partially with the yearly home ranges, indicating that home ranges contain areas used intermittently. Home ranges, and especially core areas, contained a higher proportion of mature forest than the larger study site as a whole. Across years and only in one group, the size of core areas was positively correlated with the proportion of adult males in the group, while the size of home ranges was positively correlated with both the proportion of males and the number of tree species included in the diet. Our findings suggest that spider monkey home ranges are the result of a combination of long-term site fidelity and year-to-year use variation to enable exploration of new resources

Bioenergy and climate change mitigation: an assessment

Acknowledgements The authors are indebted to Julia Römer for assisting with editing several hundred references. Helmut Haberl gratefully acknowledges funding by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Global Change Programme), the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research (BMWF, proVision programme) as well as by the EU-FP7 project VOLANTE. Carmenza Robledo-Abad received financial support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs.Peer reviewedPostprin