Gender and payments for environmental services 845 Participation is a key aspect of PES that can be influ-
enced by gender dynamics, both in programme design and in making payments (Boyd, 2002; Corbera et al., 2007). There are numerous examples of women being excluded from meetings about PES (vonHedemann & Osborne, 2016) or accessing them at lower rates than men, often be- cause of discrimination or time constraints (Khadka et al., 2014; Samndong & Kjosavik, 2017; Bee, 2019). Women may also not have input into or control over assets (namely land) that are required to participate in PES programmes (Kariuki & Birner, 2015), or PES activities may not be avail- able towomen or not compensated at the same rates because of gender norms about male and female roles (Boyd, 2002; Caro-Borrero et al., 2015; Ishihara et al., 2017; Vardhan & Catacutan, 2017; Andeltová et al., 2018). To combat these problems, some PES programmes have explicit require- ments on minimal numbers of women at PES meetings or numbers of female-headed households receiving payments. However, this can lead to so-called tokenism, such as in Mexico, where women have been nominated as leaders to get points in PES applications without their real involve- ment (Bee, 2019) and, despite the formal quotas, participa- tion of women still lags behind men (Corbera, 2010). Many studies of household payments for environmental
services have looked primarily at opportunity costs and pov- erty impacts from these investments (Tacconi et al., 2013); however, treating the household as a unified whole can ignore intra-household dynamics (Agarwal, 1997b). For ex- ample, if men receive payments, they mayspend it different- ly than women (e.g. on large purchases and recreation), whereas women tend to use benefits for pressing household needs (e.g. school fees or food; Walter &Wannitikul, 2002; Caplow et al., 2011). Schwartz (2017) also found increased inequality in decision-making in PES-participating house- holds compared to non-participants in Costa Rica. Women in some studies have expressed support for individual PES accounts, rather than household or community payments, because of exclusion from decision-making at both scales (Martin et al., 2014; Kariuki & Birner, 2015). The conservation impact of PES in relation to gender is
the least well-studied dynamic (Andeltová et al., 2018), as there is little reported effect of increased female participa- tion on improved conservation outcomes. However, lessons could be drawn from community forestry, where improved conservation has been reported when women are more in- volved in decision-making and authority (Agrawal et al., 2004; Agarwal, 2009a,b).
A case study of payments for environmental services in Viet Nam
Since 2010, Viet Nam has implemented a national policy that charges fees on hydropower plants, domestic water
suppliers, and a few other industries, and transfers this money to upland areas for forest protection (McElwee, 2012;Phạm et al., 2013). Approximately USD 100 million per year is paid to c. 500,000 participating households living in .5 million ha of eligible watershed forest (c. 40% of the country’s total forest area). The payment rates vary depend- ing on watershed and province, from as low as VND 2,000 (USD 0.09) per ha to VND 1,300,000 (USD 55) per ha or more (Nguyễn&Vương, 2016). To date, there has been little research on the gender
impacts or outcomes of the PES programme, with a major impediment being lack of data: statistics kept by the nation- al PES-coordinating office do not include information on whether any female-headed households participate or how many women benefit from the programme. Few women work in leadership in PES roles or offices (McElwee & Nguyễn, 2015).There is also no formal guidance fromauthor- ities on gender mainstreaming for PES (Phạm & Brockhaus, 2015). In some areas, the localWomen’sUnion helps dissem- inate information to attract women applicants, or disburse funds, but this is ad hoc and not widespread (Phạmet al., 2010). Previous research has indicated that gender does have important effects on resource use in Viet Nam, including differential valuation of ecosystem services between men and women (Tien et al., 2018). Participation in PES by women has not been the subject of systematic studies, but reported barriers include inability to access information (Phạm & Brockhaus, 2015; Loft et al., 2017), exclusion from meetings (Tuijnman et al., 2020), and gender discrim- ination within households (Phạm et al., 2013). Some volun- tary PES schemes outside the national programme have tried to include community benefits for women, such as microcredit, as part of payments (Do et al., 2018), but the government system does not have any formal gender- differentiated benefits.
Methods
A multi-year research project to learn about the develop- ment and impact of PES over time began in late 2011 in three provinces, representing south, central and northern Viet Nam respectively (Lâm Đồng, Thừa Thiên Huế and Sơn La provinces; Fig. 1), which were chosen because of their significant forest cover and participation in PES. For each study province, five villages in two districts were se- lected for in-depth research (villages in these areas typically have 200–500 households). In each village, a randomsample of 15–16 households was
drawn so that a target of 75 households per province could be interviewed. Included in the sample were households who had received payments for environmental services and those who had not. The survey was piloted in summer 2011 before being used in fall/winter 2011. The survey questions
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
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