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ABSTRACTThe national Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programmes of Mexico were originally based on the neoclassical economic theory that conceptualized ecosystems as factories whose various outputs can be quantified and converted to commodities. This model of PES clashed with an alternative theorization, Compensation for Ecosystem Services (CES), with home‐grown roots in the ontological orientation and contextualized experience of an epistemic community of public intellectuals with deep engagement in rural Mexico. While built upon the same basic premise — that healthy ecosystems produce services of value — the CES model reimagines payments as compensation for the sustainable stewardship and labour of rural communities and, mediated by the state, as a means to counteract the systemic structural inequities between rural and urban and global North and South. Based on discourse analysis of a series of key actor interviews, longitudinal participant observation and policy analysis, this article explores: 1) the common conceptual underpinnings in the theory of CES, but also the variances; 2) the specific influence of this model on the design of the national PES programmes; and 3) the ways in which this influence has been mediated by politics and shifting relations of power in Mexico.

ABSTRACTPayments for Ecosystem Services (PES) initiatives, which provide financial incentives for management practices thought to increase the production of environmental benefits, have expanded across the global South since the late 1990s. These initiatives have thus far been conceptualized rather narrowly; by their early proponents as a novel economic instrument for more 'rational', effective and efficient environmental policy or by their critics as an exogenously imposed conduit of hegemonic neoliberalism. This introductory article to the special issue that follows advocates for and demonstrates a more grounded and historically situated approach for understanding the conformation and outcomes of PES in actual practice. It proposes a framework for examining individual PES initiatives as shaped by dynamic interactions between imposed structure and the development pathways and situated agency of actors in the territories in which they are implemented. It finds that certain ubiquitous components of this approach — the valuation of nature, the creation of institutions and the negotiations that inevitably surround the distribution of benefits — provide potential openings for articulation and engagement that can allow these initiatives to be contested, adapted, hybridized or more fully co‐opted and captured. This framework opens a pathway for more inclusive, nuanced and grounded research on PES and on market‐based environment and development policies more broadly.

In this commentary we respond to Fletcher and Büscher's (2017) recent article in this journal on Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) as neoliberal 'conceit'. The authors claim that focusing attention on the micro-politics of PES design and implementation fails to expose an underlying neoliberal governmentality, and therefore only reinforces neoliberal capitalism as both the problem and solution of ecological crises. In response, we argue that a focus on the actions of local actors is key to understanding how and why such governmentality fails or succeeds in performing as theorized. Grand generalizations fixated on a particular hegemonic and neoliberal PES ontology overlook how actors intertwine theory and practice in ways which cannot be explained by a dominant structural theory. Such generalizations risk obscuring the complexity and situational history, practice and scale of the processes involved. Rather than relegating variegated and hybrid forms of what actually emerges from PES interventions as neoliberal conceit, we argue that an actor-oriented, 'weak theory' approach permits PES praxis to inform knowledge generation. This would open up a more inclusive and politically engaging space for thinking about and realizing political change.

Governments and conservation organisations often point to a large gap between existing financial resources and the resources needed to achieve biodiversity objectives. But the gap is almost always presented without context, as though biodiversity loss will be resolved through increased funding alone. To illuminate crucial pathways for transformative change, this report examines the political and economic dimensions of biodiversity loss. "Beyond the gap: placing biodiversity finance in the global economy" addresses two questions: how does the organization of the global economy drive biodiversity loss, and how has existing biodiversity finance performed? Trade, investment and financial regulation (or lack thereof), global economic pressures that push biodiverse countries into debt, and inequality across racialized, gender, class and colonial lines, all drive biodiversity loss and require urgent attention. Instead of transformation, a series of voluntary measures and market-based mechanisms such as payments for ecosystem services or blended finance schemes have been presented as tools to span the resource gap. This report shows that these efforts are marginal at best, and, at worst, entrench the power of rich world governments and non-state institutions like banks, large international NGOs, and supranationals. It is apparent that we must move "beyond the gap". Only by placing biodiversity loss in the global economy will it be possible to realize transformative, inclusive and equitable change. The authors offer concrete recommendations for negotiators, civil society organizations, and activist groups to push questions of biodiversity finance beyond the gap.