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Policies for land use, sustainable food production and consumption and climate action
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about how best to assess ecosystem services that require a more integrated framework, taking into account that
these services, once priced, can become substitutable for one another and therefore may not necessarily guarantee conservation. PES also needs to be contextualized due to spatial variation and large differences in what the services might be and, more importantly, what kind of activities they may compete with. PES must factor in the opportunity cost for farmers who give up an income-generating activity; they may not be attractive if the alternative is more lucrative.
PES may also suffer when there is insufficient attention to the institutional and market structure behind the service. Lessons from the first generation of PES show that there were issues relating to the targeting of payments to landowners who may not always be the primary group of people linked to the action being prevented (i.e. cutting trees). Moreover, too much focus may be placed on quantifying the service and the amount of payment to landowners, with less attention placed on the institutional structure and cultural aspects of land tenure. Understanding the ownership structure (i.e. cooperative versus individual ownership) is necessary to determine key differences in how these payments are made and used.
Among the underlying causes that could limit the long-term effectiveness of PES are the potential conflicts between conservation and development objectives; lack of participatory governance; and instances where the PES is designed
to meet a single objective (e.g. GHG mitigation only). UN-REDD+ is a special case in point, highlighting some of the limitations with PES. A large number of pilot UN-REDD interventions have been documented, ranging from pure conservation to development, including alternative sources of employment, rural enforcement tenure programmes, education programmes and others. The view from the UN-REDD literature review is that the programme’s success is quite variable. Successful cases are associated with time-tested methods of enforcement and regulation and through land use zoning. Another difficulty with UN-REDD is the economic rationale as it is not always easy to come up with the money required to compensate for the full opportunity cost, although there are conflicting views on this.46 These projects are, however, mostly not jurisdictional REDD+ and another stumbling block for widespread implementation
is the countries’ REDD+ readiness. The Green Climate Fund recognizes this and intends to support efforts by national designated authorities and focal points to engage with the GCF in the early phases of REDD+.47 UN-REDD programmes appear to work more effectively when designed as packages of interventions that cover development, income and food security for the rural population, in addition to the need to save the forest.
5.1.2 Policies relating to water resource and water scarcity
A climate-smart water system begins with climate-induced changes in hydrological processes and integrates the responses (i.e. water demand and supply) as part of a coalescent strategy that incorporates the food, land, energy, health and environment sectors. In terms of food, water is not only a production input through irrigation, in situations of water scarcity, water can influence trade policy and trade specialisation. Regarding scale, water resources are planned and managed at the level of the river basin or watershed, which may create the problem of farming often being decided at the farm-plot level. The need to integrate water use policy with water using sectors (e.g. farming, agroforestry, inland fisheries, energy, industry, domestic users) is well recognized, although the challenge lies in implementation and successful cases of integration are not numerous. A first challenge is scale alignment (i.e. river basin vs farm or field) and the second is institutional coordination. The latter may be a more difficult obstacle, especially in developing countries where development projects tend to segment along ministry lines and along individual donor- funded projects – often with uncoordinated and sometimes conflicting objectives.
With regard to water scarcity, water use policy must make a clear distinction between water use efficiency at the field (or farm) level and water use sustainability (i.e. water shed level or aquifer level for groundwater). Increasing irrigation technology can have a direct effect on water productivity, although that does not necessarily mean it improves water sustainability and water resilience. In addition, productivity at the field scale may be at the expense of sustainability and resilience at the basin scale. Water policies often fail in the long run when they focus too much on water use efficiency (or productivity) without taking the necessary measures to ensure water use sustainability. Water use efficiency in itself is challenging, owing to the inherent difficulties in establishing the proper water markets and identifying correct water pricing. In most situations around the world, water is much less expensive, if not free, compared to its true opportunity cost.
46 Angelsen et al. (2016).
47 UNFCCC. (2016).
FAO-IPCC Expert meeting on climate change, land use and food security