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ABSTRACTBased on observations from all three tropical continents, there is good reason to believe that poor service providers can broadly gain access to payment for environmental services (PES) schemes, and generally become better off from that participation, in both income and non-income terms. However, poverty effects need to be analysed in a conceptual framework looking not only at poor service providers, but also at poor service users and non-participants. Effects on service users are positive if environmental goals are achieved, while those on non-participants can be positive or negative. The various participation filters of a PES scheme contain both pro-poor and anti-poor selection biases. Quantitative welfare effects are bound to remain small-scale, compared to national poverty-alleviation goals. Some pro-poor interventions are possible, but increasing regulations excessively could curb PES efficiency and implementation scale, which could eventually harm the poor. Prime focus of PES should thus remain on the environment, not on poverty.

This editorial by Sven Wunder, Senior Economist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Belm, Brazil, describes findings from a survey of PES field initiatives in the Andes. ; PES-1 (Payments for Environmental Services Associate Award)

Gabon's oil wealth coincides with the fact that it is one of the most forested countries in Africa; about four-fifths of its land area is covered by forests. But this is not really a coincidence. The central hypothesis of this report is that oil rents have enabled a series of pro-urban, anti-rural policies that, together with the low demographic pressure, have been key in protecting forests from degradation and deforestation. In particular, forest conversion to cropland has been contained. Most probably, oil has helped expand forest cover in absolute terms. This has occurred through a number of economy-wide market and policy responses to oil wealth. Yet, none of the policies has been implemented because the government cared particularly about forests. Rather, the policies accompanying oil wealth have caused agriculture to decline. This misfortune has enabled forests to expand by default. Gabon's unintentional, 'blind' conservation policies have been far more successful in conserving forests than most of those designed consciously by governments that actively strive to protect their forests through direct conservation measures. The gradually emerging decline in Gabon's oil revenues thus poses serious challenges both for the macroeconomy and for forest conservation. The final part of this report discusses development scenarios and specific policy options for how to adjust to declining oil rents without sacrificing Gabon's rich forests.

Gabon's oil wealth coincides with the fact that it is one of the most forested countries in Africa; about four-fifths of its land area is covered by forests. But this is not really a coincidence. The central hypothesis of this report is that oil rents have enabled a series of pro-urban, anti-rural policies that, together with the low demographic pressure, have been key in protecting forests from degradation and deforestation. In particular, forest conversion to cropland has been contained. Most probably, oil has helped expand forest cover in absolute terms. This has occurred through a number of economy-wide market and policy responses to oil wealth. Yet, none of the policies has been implemented because the government cared particularly about forests. Rather, the policies accompanying oil wealth have caused agriculture to decline. This misfortune has enabled forests to expand by default. Gabon's unintentional, 'blind' conservation policies have been far more successful in conserving forests than most of those designed consciously by governments that actively strive to protect their forests through direct conservation measures. The gradually emerging decline in Gabon's oil revenues thus poses serious challenges both for the macroeconomy and for forest conservation. The final part of this report discusses development scenarios and specific policy options for how to adjust to declining oil rents without sacrificing Gabon's rich forests.

Tourism on Ilha Grande is to an overwhelming extent nature-based and the attractiveness of the island as a tourist destination is neatly linked to its extensive forest coverage. At about 150 km from Rio de Janeiro and 400 km from São Paulo, Ilha Grande is close to two of the most populous cities in the southern hemisphere. It thus caters predominantly to native Brazilian tourists. Looking specifically at local incomes from low-income tourism in the case of the traditional fishermen's village of Aventureiro, the hypothesis that 'backpackers leave no money on the island' was clearly rejected. Campers spend little per capita, but their large numbers generate sizeable incomes. The discourse of the tourism planners on Ilha Grande generally was about environmental carrying capacity – 'degradation of the environment' – yet the substance behind it is actually about perceptional limits. Has perceptional carrying capacity objectively been surpassed? Obviously not, since limits are subjective and differ enormously between, on the one hand, the low-spending students – and the camping ground owners catering to them – and, on the other, the higher middle-class tourist – and the up-market hostel owners with considerable investments at stake. The study concludes that native tourism can have significant positive spin-offs on both livelihoods and environmental conservation, but considerable trade-offs between tourism types and stakeholder interests can develop over the life cycle of a tourism destination, paving the way for struggles around the political economy of tourism.

Within the new array of 'green' products and services, ecotourism claims to combine environmental responsibility with the generation of local economic benefits that will have both a development impact and serve as conservation incentives. Economic incentives are imperative for nature conservation, particularly in remote and ill-monitored regions where a weak state presence hinders the use of alternative tools of environmental regulation. In the following, the link between tourism, local benefits and conservation is conceptualised and analysed empirically, using data from the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon region, near the border of Colombia and Peru. Three Cuyabeno indigenous groups have developed different modes of tourism participation, ranging from autonomous operations to pure salary employment. A quantification of local cash flows from tourism allows for a comparative analysis of income structure, spending, and the impacts on local development and on conservation attitudes. It is concluded that in the whole study area, tourism has actually provided significant additional income. Counter to common belief, the mode of participation is less decisive for local income generation than the tourist attraction of the natural site, the degree of tourism specialisation and the level of local organisation. However, as a conservation incentive, the effectiveness of tourism income depends on the incentive structure inherent in the mode participation, and on the substitution versus complementary of other productive activities: only if tourism changes labour and land allocation decisions, will it have a local conservation impact. It is discussed under which circumstances the conjectured link between tourism, local incomes and conservation is likely to be effective. This leads to some general lessons for government policies, for the design of integrated conservation and development projects, and to a number of site-specific recommendations for improving incentive structures.