Payment for Ecosystem Services    

The OAS, through DSD, signed a contribution arrangement with the Canadian International Development Agency for the “Trade and Environment in the Americas” Project.

To respond to trade-related capacity building development needs in the area of environmental management, the DSD has worked towards improving market-based approaches for the conservation of biological diversity through the support of Payments for Ecological Services (PES). Innovative financial instruments for conservation, including Payments for Ecological Services (PES) are increasingly used as tools to implement conservation policies at the national level. The DSD has identified innovative private sector partnerships in environment-related financing through the compilation of PES systems, recent trends in nature and conservation swap-payment schemes, as well as an assessment of the public sector enabling mechanisms required to support such PES systems. This assessment included an investigation of the role of land tenure and property rights, fiscal and regulatory systems, and other policies.

The project activities reflect priorities identified by countries of the region and has aimed to aid them in the development of the capacities needed in the areas of good governance, the sustainable management of natural resources and trade policy decision-making. The objective of these activities is to build the necessary skills and capacities among government, private sector and civil society actors on a sustainable, long-term and people-centered basis. The four clusters of the project are the following:

  • Strengthen environmental management systems in support of cleaner production objectives in general, and the sound management of chemicals in particular.     
  • Improve mechanisms related to the effective enforcement of environmental laws.
  • Innovative approaches to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
  •  Development of a "toolkit" of training courses on trade and environment.     

The project's geographical scope includes:

  • Andean Community and wider Amazon River Basin Community (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname).
  •  Eastern Caribbean Region (Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Dominican Republic).  

Inventory on Payments for environmental Services

The DSD has launched an Inventory on Payments for Environmental Services. The main objective of the inventory is to catalogue transactions and projects intended to support Payments for Environmental Systems (PES), with an emphasis on existing programs in the hemisphere of the Americas. More...

Legal provisions related to Payment for Ecosystem Services: News and Latest Updates

  • November 1-5, 2010. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Fundglode in partnership with the OAS/DSD, organized a course on Payment for Environmental Services in Latin America and the Caribbean. Evaluations | More (Spanish)

  • August 18, 2009. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) in partnership with the DSD and the GTZ, organized an event on Payment for Environmental Services in Latin America and the Caribbean. Agenda

  • June 19, 2009. Washington D.C. DSD launched the publication: "Legal Institutional Frameworks for Payments for Ecosystem Services: Eight Country Analysis". More...    

  • June 15-19, 2009. Washington D.C. Training course on the Designing and Implementation of Payment for Ecosystem Services. Evaluations | More (Spanish)

  • Payments for Ecosystem Services and Sustainable Agriculture for Conservation and Development in Paraguay. More...

  • November 10, 2008. Belize. 10th General Assembly RedLAC | OAS Presentation    

  • June 4, 2008. Sao Paulo, Brazil. Workshop: Trends in the Implementation of Payments for Environmental Services in the Americas. More...

Documents

  • Legal Institutional Framework for Payments for Ecosystem Services: Eight Countries Analysis (Spanish only).

  • Draft Conceptual and Methodological Guidelines for Design of PES schemes in Latin American and the Caribbean (Spanish only).

  • Payments for Environmental Services.

  • Environmental Valuation as a Supporting Tool for Environmental Services Payment.