Dependence on ecosystems services

Where possible, local, national and regional strategies to pre- serve biodiversity through the sustainable management of ecosystems should be combined with efforts to alleviate and ideally eliminate poverty. Such a dual approach coincides with the aim of achieving internationally agreed objectives such as the Millennium Development Goals.

When the poor work and live in balance with the ecosystem on which they depend, there is a higher likelihood of boost- ing productivity and having more direct environmental in- come. Trough such processes people are not only helping themselves: those living well outside the immediate area can benefit too. For example, if healthy forest cover is preserved in a river catchment area, erosion can be controlled, water- sheds maintained and water supplies secured, all of which are of great benefit to landowners downstream.

Emerging PES markets and potential benefits PES may play a key role in helping to alleviate poverty: it has the potential to provide important benefits to poor people at the household or community level, whether in the form of cash payments or in non-cash formats such as capacity build- ing for a transition to more profitable, resilient land-use sys- tems, establishing secure land tenure, or strengthening social capital and supportive local institutions.

Te paper Trends and Future Potential of Payment for Ecosys- tem Services to Alleviate Rural Poverty in Developing Countries (Milder et al. 2010), estimates that between 10 and 15 million low-income households in developing countries could benefit from markets for ecosystem services and biodiversity conser- vation. Millions more, it claims, could benefit in coming years from market measures targeting watershed protection, en- hancing landscape beauty and providing recreational ameni- ties. However some experts also argue that PES has primarily benefitted the rich who are already part of a working market economy.

Advantages of PES Tere are both short and long-term advantages to properly run PES schemes. In the short term PES can create more ben- efits for poor communities: this can translate into, for exam- ple, better education and health care, and more money avail- able either for investment to improve productivity or to buy household goods. In the long term, local ecosystems can be improved which in turn will have a beneficial knock-on effect on adjacent areas.

PES can also clarify land or user-rights and formalise resource tenure, giving local people a voice as environmental stewards of their land and community. For the first time poorer house- holds can have options for livelihood which can generate in- come and maintain their wealth in the form of healthy eco- systems and the possibility to transcend a purely subsistence form of existence. Spiritual and cultural aspects of communi- ty life tied to nature will be also strengthened and preserved.

Developing PES agreements to alleviate poverty While PES schemes are primarily about setting up and work- ing with markets for ecosystem services – but not specifi- cally designed to alleviate poverty – they can be an important source of income in poor areas. For example, in the Cauca

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