Centre for International Forestry Research

Montoya-Zumaeta, J., Rojas, E., & Wunder, S. 2019 PloS one, 14(11) The authors estimated the effects of Peru’s oldest watershed payments for environmental services (PES) initiative in Moyobamba (Andes–Amazon transition zone) and disentangle the complex intervention into its two main forest conservation treatments. First, a state-managed protected area (PA) was established, allowing sustainable use but drastically limiting de facto land use and land rights of households in the upper watershed through command-and-control interventions. Second, a subset of those environmentally regulated households also received incentives: PES-like voluntary contracts with conditional in-kind rewards, combined with access to participation in sustainable income-generating activities [...]

Bösch, M., Elsasser, P., Wunder, S. 2019 World Development, Vol. 119 Payments for watershed services (PWS) are an increasingly popular tool for watershed management, also in the Southern Hemisphere. However, the degree of PWS adoption varies across these countries and the causes for these adoption differences have so far been little discussed. This paper address this knowledge gap with a quantitative cross-national assessment of factors influencing the decision to adopt PWS schemes across tropical countries. This research, in collaboration with colleagues from the von Thuenen Institute in Hamburg, forms part of the SINCERE project’s Work Package 1 on creating a knowledge [...]