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Assessing global tendencies and impacts of conditional payments for environmental services (PES) programs is challenging because of their heterogeneity, and scarcity of comparative studies. This meta-study systematizes 55 PES schemes worldwide in a quantitative database. Using categorical principal component analysis to highlight clustering patterns, we reconfirm frequently hypothesized differences between public and private PES schemes, but also identify diverging patterns between commercial and non-commercial private PES vis-à-vis their service focus, area size, and market orientation. When do these PES schemes likely achieve significant environmental additionality? Using binary logistical regression, we find additionality to be positively influenced by three theoretically recommended PES 'best design' features: spatial targeting, payment differentiation, and strong conditionality, alongside some contextual controls (activity paid for and implementation time elapsed). Our results thus stress the preeminence of customized design over operational characteristics when assessing what determines the outcomes of PES implementation.

The establishment of marine protected areas (MPA) has become the prevailing management strategy to stop the degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems; however, the effectiveness of MPAs is affected not only by ecological factors but also by social ones. Identifying and understanding socioeconomic conditions and the institutional context of fishing communities is essential to achieve success with MPAs. We propose a practical methodology for estimating the adaptive capacity (AC) of local communities to the establishment of MPAs. Adaptive capacity is defined as the ability of households to anticipate and respond to disturbances, natural or human induced, and to minimize, cope with, and recover from the consequences. We propose an index of adaptive capacity (IAC) of fishing communities that can be estimated at a local scale. This composite index comprises three dimensions, i.e., socioeconomic, social-ecological, and socio-political/institutional, which attempt to capture comprehensively the determinants of AC. Each dimension is constructed from three indicators, whose estimation is based on information collected from a household structured survey for which we suggested specific questions. We proposed the use of a Min function to highlight the weakest dimension of the IAC and guide decision makers with respect to elements that should be addressed to improve AC. A discussion about normalization and aggregation issues is also included.

Economic Experimental Games have shown that individuals make decisions that deviate down from the suboptimal Nash equilibrium. However, few studies have analyzed the case when deviation is above the Nash equilibrium. Extracting from above the Nash equilibrium is inefficient not only socially but also privately and it would exacerbate the tragedy of the commons. That would be the case of a race to the fish when stocks are becoming depleted or driver behavior on a highly congested road. The objective of this study is to analyze private inefficient extraction behavior in experimental games and to associate the type of player and the type of player group with such inefficient outcomes. To do this, we carried out economic experimental games with local coastal fishermen in Colombia, using a setting where the scarcity of the resource allows for an interior Nash equilibrium and inefficient over-extraction is possible. The state of the resource, the type of player and the composition of the group explain, in part, this inefficient behavior.

Many indigenous communities living in the Amazon rely on hunting and fishing to meet the majority of their protein needs. Despite the importance of these practices, few studies from the region have analyzed the socioeconomic drivers of hunting and fishing at the household level. We propose a household production model to assess the effect of key economic parameters on hunting and fishing in small indigenous communities located in the Ecuadorian Amazon, whose principal source of protein is derived from hunting and fishing. The model was validated using empirical data from two communities that reflect different levels of market integration and forest conservation. Demand and supply functions were generated from household data gathered over 19 months. Elasticities were derived to determine the sensitivity of the decision to engage in hunting to exogenous parameters such as off-farm wages, hunting costs, bushmeat price, penalties for the illegal sale of bushmeat, and biological characteristics of the game species. After calibrating the model, we simulated changes in the key economic parameters. The parameter that most directly affected hunting activity in both communities was off-farm wages. Simulating a 10% wage increase resulted in a 16–20% reduction in harvested biomass, while a 50% increase diminished harvested biomass by > 50%. Model simulations revealed that bushmeat price and penalties for illegal trade also had important effects on hunter behavior in terms of amount of bushmeat sold, but not in terms of total harvest. As a tool for understanding hunters’ economic decision-making, the model provides a basis for developing strategies that promote sustainable hunting and wildlife conservation while protecting indigenous livelihoods.

Departing from a theoretical methodology, we estimate empirically an index of adaptive capacity (IAC) of a fishing community to the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs). We carried out household surveys, designed to obtain information for indicators and sub-indicators, and calculated the IAC. Moreover, we performed a sensitivity analysis to check for robustness of the results. Our findings show that, despite being located between two MPAs, the fishing community of Bazân in the Colombian Pacific is highly vulnerable and that the socioeconomic dimension of the IAC constitutes the most binding dimension for building adaptive capacity. Bazán is characterized by extreme poverty, high dependence on resources, and lack of basic public infrastructure. Notwithstanding, social capital and local awareness about ecological conditions may act as enhancers of adaptive capacity. The establishment of MPAs should consider the development of strategies to confer adaptive capacity to local communities highly dependent on resource extraction.

In developing countries, informal waste-pickers (known as scavengers) play an important role in solid waste management systems, acting in a parallel way to formal waste collection and disposal agents. Scavengers collect, from the streets, dumpsites, or landfills, re-usable and recyclable material that can be reincorporated into the economy's production process. Despite the benefits that they generate to society, waste-pickers are ignored when waste management policies are formulated. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the role of scavengers in a dynamic model of production, consumption, and recovery, and to show that, in an economy producing solid waste, efficiency can be reached using a set of specific and complementary policies: a tax on virgin materials use, a tax on consumption and disposal, and a subsidy to the recovery of material. A numerical simulation is performed to evaluate the impact of these policies on landfill lifetime and natural resource stocks. A discussion on the implementation of these instruments is also included.

1. Understanding interspecific interactions, and the influences of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental change on communities, are key challenges in ecology. Despite the pressing need to understand these fundamental drivers of community structure and dynamics, only 17% of ecological studies conducted over the past three decades have been at the community level. 2. Here, we assess the trophic structure of the procellariiform community breeding at South Georgia, to identify the factors that determine foraging niches and possible temporal changes. We collected conventional diet data from 13 sympatric species between 1974 and 2002, and quantified intra- and inter-guild, and annual variation in diet between and within foraging habits. In addition, we tested the reliability of stable isotope analysis (SIA) of seabird feathers collected over a 13-year period, in relation to those of their potential prey, as a tool to assess community structure when diets are diverse and there is high spatial heterogeneity in environmental baselines. 3. Our results using conventional diet data identified a four-guild community structure, distinguishing species that mainly feed on crustaceans; large fish and squid; a mixture of crustaceans, small fish and squid; or carrion. In total, Antarctic krill Euphausia superba represented 32%, and 14 other species a further 46% of the combined diet of all 13 predators, underlining the reliance of this community on relatively few types of prey. Annual variation in trophic segregation depended on relative prey availability; however, our data did not provide evidence of changes in guild structure associated with a suggested decline in Antarctic krill abundance over the past 40 years. 4. Reflecting the differences in δ15N of potential prey (crustaceans vs. squid vs. fish and carrion), analysis of δ15N in chick feathers identified a three-guild community structure that was constant over a 13-year period, but lacked the trophic cluster representing giant petrels which was identified using conventional diet data. 5. Our study is the first in recent decades to examine dietary changes in seabird communities over time. Conventional dietary analysis provided better resolution of community structure than SIA. However, δ15N in chick feathers, which reflected trophic (level) specialization, was nevertheless an effective and less time-consuming means of monitoring temporal changes.

Many indigenous communities living in the Amazon rely on hunting and fishing to meet the majority of their protein needs. Despite the importance of these practices, few studies from the region have analyzed the socioeconomic drivers of hunting and fishing at the household level. We propose a household production model to assess the effect of key economic parameters on hunting and fishing in small indigenous communities located in the Ecuadorian Amazon, whose principal source of protein is derived from hunting and fishing. The model was validated using empirical data from two communities that reflect different levels of market integration and forest conservation. Demand and supply functions were generated from household data gathered over 19 months. Elasticities were derived to determine the sensitivity of the decision to engage in hunting to exogenous parameters such as off-farm wages, hunting costs, bushmeat price, penalties for the illegal sale of bushmeat, and biological characteristics of the game species. After calibrating the model, we simulated changes in the key economic parameters. The parameter that most directly affected hunting activity in both communities was off-farm wages. Simulating a 10% wage increase resulted in a 16–20% reduction in harvested biomass, while a 50% increase diminished harvested biomass by > 50%. Model simulations revealed that bushmeat price and penalties for illegal trade also had important effects on hunter behavior in terms of amount of bushmeat sold, but not in terms of total harvest. As a tool for understanding hunters’ economic decision-making, the model provides a basis for developing strategies that promote sustainable hunting and wildlife conservation while protecting indigenous livelihoods.