The governance of ecosystem services from tropical upland watersheds
Introduction
Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems [1]. The notion was introduced and promoted as an alternative way of thinking about conserving biodiversity threatened by habitat destruction—one in which human well-being is considered more explicitly [2•]. At the global level the distribution of valued ecosystem services overlaps substantially with locations important for biodiversity conservation in the tropics [3]. At the watershed level correspondence is more complex, dynamic and context-sensitive [4•, 5••].
Upland watersheds in the tropics provide a range of crucial ecosystem goods and services to people living in them as well as further downstream and elsewhere [5••]. These include being sources of food and water, pollination and pest control for crops, sites for cultural activities as well as providing regulatory services like flood protection, buffering river base flows, carbon sequestration and water filtration. These services are used and valued by different groups at multiple spatial levels [6]. Intermediate services and underlying ecosystem functions, are vulnerable to climate change, invasive species, infrastructure development, habitat conversion, over-use and other human activities [1]. Societies have approached the governance challenges of fair and effective integration among multiple uses and balancing competing management objectives in diverse ways but with only modest success [7].
In this paper we review experiences with governing ecosystem services from upland watersheds of the tropics. We organize our review around a modified production–consumption system's [8] framework that acknowledges providers as just one part of the production process along with ecosystems (Figure 1).
Section snippets
Spatial land-use planning
A common approach to managing the complex set of services from upland watersheds is through spatial land-use planning by experts. Most conservation policies and strategies of governments are still founded on the basic idea of separating people from their environments [7]. Vast areas of the tropics were declared as protected areas for conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services between 1980 and 2005, but often without corresponding increases in resources or capacity building for management [9
Clarifying property rights
Whether an ecosystem service is a private, public, club or common good may make a substantial difference to practices [30•, 31•]. Individual property rights are particularly useful to farmers as they encourage investment in land, for example, to growing trees that may not provide returns for many years and formal title deeds are useful as collateral in obtaining loans [32]. Where land ownership is private and unambiguous some non-governmental organizations, like The Nature Conservancy or World
Building awareness
Understanding about ecosystem services, especially supporting services, is often underdeveloped. Building awareness of the services provided by ecosystems is important to garner public support for their conservation both at level of policies as well as in targeting improvements in management practices in particular watersheds [30•].
Education programs should consider both production and consumption issues (Figure 1). Even donors may also need to be educated about alternative approaches to
Monitoring
Monitoring of policies and projects is important to: detect incomplete or distorted implementation; assess compliance with agreements; evaluate actual impact; and, learn from past to improve future interventions. Monitoring may be undertaken by ecosystem service providers, users or third parties.
Actual management practices for timber, water and other ecosystem services from upland watersheds frequently do not match plans, follow rules or fit expectations on the basis of simple incentives. There
Conclusions
Upland watersheds in the humid and seasonally dry tropics provide a range of ecosystem services. How they are governed has consequences for both ecological sustainability and human well-being. In this paper we divided projects, policies and other initiatives into planning, regulation, information and monitoring.
Planning has conventionally been led by government bureaucrats relying on neat physical and institutional separation into conservation and use. In the tropics there is substantial
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the annual period of review, have been highlighted as:
• of special interest
•• of outstanding interest
Acknowledgements
This review was supported by grant ARCP2008-18NMY-Braimoh from the Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research and grant PN50 from the Challenge Program on Water and Food with funds from Echel Eau and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
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