Policy lessons from spatiotemporal enrollment patterns of payment for ecosystem service programs in Argentina

Abstract

Payment for ecosystem services schemes (PES) are lauded as a market-based solution to curtail deforestation andrestore degraded ecosystems. However, PES programs often fail to conserve sites under strong long-term deforestationpressures. Underperformance, in part, is likely due to adverse selection. Spatial adverse selectionoccurs when landowners are more likely to enroll parcels with low deforestation pressure than parcels with highdeforestation pressure. Temporal adverse selection arises when parcels are enrolled for short time periods. Inboth cases, financial resources are allocated without having a sizeable impact on long-term land use change.Improving program performance to overcome these shortcomings requires understanding attributes of landownersand their parcels across large scales to identify spatial and temporal enrollment patterns that driveadverse selection. In this paper, we examine these patterns in Argentina?s PES program in Chaco forest, a globaldeforestation hotspot. Our study area covers 252,319 km2. Results from multinomial logistic regression modelsshowed that large parcels of enrolled land and parcels owned by absentee landowners exhibit greater evidence ofspatiotemporal adverse selection than smaller parcels or parcels owned by local landowners. Furthermore,parcels managed under land use plans for conservation and restoration are more likely to be associated withadverse selection than parcels managed for financial returns such as harvest of non-timber forest products,silviculture, and silvopasture. However, prior to recommending that PES programs focus on land uses withhigher potential earnings, a greater understanding is needed of the degree to which these land uses meet ecologicaland biodiversity goals of PES programs. We suggest that increased spatial targeting of enrollment, alongwith enrollment of local landowners and further incentives for land uses that support conservation and restoration,could promote long-term conservation of forest lands.