Gender and payments for environmental services: impacts of participation, benefit-sharing and conservation activities in Viet Nam
PAMELA MC ELWE E,HU Ệ TH Ị VĂ N L Ê,TUY Ế N P HƯƠNG NGHIÊM HƯƠNG DI Ệ U VŨ and NGHỊ HỮ Ư TR Ầ N
Abstract There has been a rapid expansion in the use of payments for environmental services (PES) as a key conser- vation finance policy. However, there is insufficient under- standing of how gender can affect PES implementation and outcomes. We present results from a case study in Viet Nam, where a national PES programme has been in place for a decade. Through panel household survey data, focus groups and interviews, we examined how women have been involved in PES policies, what the impacts have been on decision-making by men and women, participation rates and use of PES income over time, and the potential conser- vation outcomes. Our research confirms that resource use varies between men and women, and changes in access rights can fall disproportionately on women. Participation in PES has been lower for female-headed households and for women within male-headed households, although gradually more equitable participation has evolved within households. Female-headed households reported expending more yearly effort on PES activities despite protecting less land, and also increased their conservation activities over time as they presumably became more familiar with PES. Use of income from PES also showed differences between male and female-led households, with men more likely to spend funds on non-essential goods. Within households, although men initially decided how to spend PES money, decision-making has become more equitable over time. We conclude with some recommendations on how to increase attention to gender in PES projects and future research to improve outcomes.
Keywords Asia, conservation finance, equity, gender, household livelihoods, impact evaluation, market-based conservation, payments for ecosystem services
Introduction
ecosystems to those who ensure conservation, have rapidly expanded in size and scope since the 1990s (Wunder et al., 2018). Empirical studies on the effectiveness of PES in achieving goals, from stopping deforestation to alleviat- ing poverty, have also increased (Salzman et al., 2018). However, there remain gaps in our knowledge regarding gender and PES (Cruz-Garcia et al., 2017). Although there have been arguments in favour of paying attention to wom- en’s participation in PES on the basis of equity and inclusion (Pascual et al., 2014;Phạm & Brockhaus, 2015), there has been less empirical research on how gender roles and re- sponsibilities affect PES implementation and outcomes for conservation, as well as how PES programmes could affect men and women in different ways (Boyd, 2002; Kariuki & Birner, 2015; Schwartz, 2017; Vardhan & Catacutan, 2017; Andeltová et al., 2018; Bee, 2019; Benjamin et al., 2018). The existing, although limited, literature on gender and
P
PES has identified several important areas of research, whichwe briefly review
here.Although there has been consid- erable work on howgender has influenced other conservation approaches, such as community-based natural resourceman- agement (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Resurrection & Elmhirst, 2008), we focus here on PES as a relatively new approach using financial incentives. We argue there is a need to have greater knowledge of the gender implications of the mech- anisms of PES so as to improve outcomes. Existing studies suggest that projects to promote conser-
PAMELA MCELWEE (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0003-3525-9285)
Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, USA. E-mail
pamela.mcelwee@
rutgers.edu
HUỆ THỊ VĂN LÊ,TUYẾN PHƯƠNG NGHIÊM and HƯƠNG DIỆU VŨ Central Institute for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Viet Nam National University of Science, Hanoi, Viet Nam
NGHỊ HỮƯ TRẦN Viet Nam Office, Tropenbos International, Hue, Viet Nam
Received 19 December 2019. Revision requested 3 June 2020. Accepted 29 July 2020. First published online 25 June 2021.
vation behaviours, such as PES, may have different impacts on men and women simply because they use and value resources differently (Fortnam et al., 2019). Women often value, prioritize, collect, grow or otherwise use ecosystem services producing energy, food, water and medicine more than men (Walter & Wannitikul, 2002; Sunderland et al., 2014; Calvet-Mir et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2018; Cruz-Garcia et al., 2019; Pearson et al., 2019). As a result, restrictions on use of natural resources may have a disproportionate effect on women’s well-being (Agarwal, 1997a; Kerr, 2002; Larson et al., 2018), and if this is not compensated for by sufficient or targeted payments, PES could lead to declines in women’s income and livelihood options, as well as decrease their willingness to participate (Kerr, 2002; Daw et al., 2011).
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 844–852 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000733
ayments for environmental services (PES) programmes, which provide funding from beneficiaries and users of
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