The original paper From principles to practice in paying for nature’s services, led to a critical response from Esteve Corbera (UAB) and his collaborators (Wells et al.) who wrote to defend simplified PES designs and called for further consideration of social-ecological context and drivers of environmental interventions and behaviour.
EFI Principal Scientist Sven Wunder, led a reply from the original researcher team addressing in turn Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) technical design, equity concerns and impacts, while finally raising a concern about environmentally inefficient PES schemes which, though still providing income support and welfare benefits to contractors, may affect service users’ willingness to pay.
The paired peer review exchange is now published in Nature Sustainability and makes for a fascinating exploration of issues to consider in the effectiveness of PES initiatives.
Full reference
Wunder, S., Brouwer, R., Engel, S., Ezzine-de-Blas, D., Muradian, R., Pascual, U., & Pinto, R. 2020. Reply to: In defence of simplified PES designs. Nature Sustainability, 1-2.