Contribution of Payment for Ecosystem Services in Addressing Adaptation to Climate Change

Abstract

Payments for Ecosystems Services (PES) are market-based mechanisms that are designed to provide incentives to the owners of natural resources to increase the provision of ecosystem services upon which our society depends.  PES is a mechanism to deliver additional adaptation benefits by improving the incentive for land owners to invest in the creation and restoration of habitats. The concept of payments for ecosystem services (PES) emerged in 2007 as a promising tool for enhancing or safeguarding the provision of ecosystem services (ES). However, it has been identified that land cover change is one of the most integral drivers of change to ecosystems and their services and a focus on land cover change as a proxy would seem to be a contextually robust approach. The general objective was to evaluate the contribution of payment for ecosystem services in addressing climate change adaptation through systematic literature review methodology. The three specific objectives to be addressed were: to determine the various ecosystem goods and services, the mode of payment for the goods and services and the linkage between PES and climate change adaptation. The findings are that (i) provisioning (ii) regulating, (iii) supporting and (iv) cultural as the goods and services provided. The modes of payment include: cash, payment in kind that respects the culture, sellers can be individual or a group of community members. The linkage of PES to climate change adaptation is done indirectly in that when sellers take care of the environment, degradation is reduced and the aspects of climate change are addressed. In conclusion, it is true that there are goods and services accruing from ecosystems when they are conserved, payments are useful for they compensate the work sellers are doing and climate change issues will be addressed indirectly by having in-place various interventions done by sellers. To realize the payments, public private partnerships is crucial. I recommend that the best mode of payment towards the realization of ecosystem services should be in-kind in order to accommodate all stakeholders in a given geographical area. It is important to  adopt the approach that Ecosystem based Adaptation (EbA) should operate within interlinked social-ecological systems, using the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to enhance ecological processes and services that are essential for strengthening climate resilience of populations at local scales