Environment Department Papers

52 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

These discussion papers are produced primarily by the Environment Department, on occasion jointly with other departments. Papers in this series are not formal publications of the World Bank. They are circulated to encourage thought and discussion. The use and citation of this paper should take this into account. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 10 of 11
  • Publication
    Impacts of Conservation Incentives in Protected Areas: The Case of Bolsa Floresta, Brazil
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-11) Cisneros, Elias; Borner, Jan; Pagiola, Stefano; Wunder, Sven
    Incentive-based conservation is a promising approach to tropical forest conservation, including within multiple-use protected areas. Here we analyze the environmental impacts of Bolsa Floresta, a longstanding forest conservation program combining conditional household payments with livelihood-focused investments in 15 multiple-use reserves of Amazonas State, Brazil. We use grid-based data, nearest-neighbor matching, and panel data econometrics to compare forest-related program outcomes (deforestation, degradation, fires) with non-participating reserves. While post-treatment deforestation and degradation was negligible, this was already the case pre-treatment, since low-threat reserves had preferentially been targeted. We thus find only statistically insignificant additional conservation effects from implementation. No important heterogeneous treatment effects could be detected either. Our findings thus add to the growing evidence that spatial mis-targeting towards low-hanging fruits, that is disproportionally selecting low-threat forest conservation areas into programs, constitutes a prime cause for low additionality found in rigorous impact evaluations of incentive-based forest conservation initiatives.
  • Publication
    Assessing the Permanence of Land Use Change Induced by Payments for Environmental Services: Evidence from Nicaragua
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-05) Pagiola, Stefano; Honey-Rosés, Jordi; Freire-González, Jaume
    There have been few efforts to evaluate whether the positive land use changes induced by conservation interventions such as Payments for Environmental Services (PES) persist once the interventions end. Since gains achieved by conservation interventions may be lost upon termination of the program, even apparently successful interventions may not result in longterm conservation benefits, a problem known as that of permanence. This paper examines the permanence of land use changes induced by a short-term PES program implemented between 2003 and 2008 in Matiguas-Rio Blanco, Nicaragua. This PES program had been found to have a positive and highly significant impact on land use, and particularly on the adoption of silvopastoral practices. To assess the long-term permanence of these changes, participants were re-surveyed in 2012, four years after the last payment was made. We find that the land use changes that had been induced by PES were broadly sustained in intervening years, with minor differences across specific practices and sub-groups of participants. The patterns of change in the period after the PES program was completed help us understand the reasons for the program's success, and rule out alternative explanations for the program's success. Our results suggest that, at least in the case of productive land uses such as silvopastoral practices, PES programs can be effective at encouraging land owners to adopt environmentally beneficial land use practices and that the benefit will persist after payments cease.
  • Publication
    Do They Do As They Say?: Stated versus Revealed Preferences and Take Up in an Incentives for Conservation Program
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06) De Martino, Samantha; Kondylis, Florence; Pagiola, Stefano; Zwager, Astrid
    Use of conditional cash transfers has become widespread in development policy given their success in boosting health and education outcomes. Recently, conditional cash transfers are being used to promote pro-environmental behavior. While many of these Payments for Environment Services (PES) programs have been successful, it has been hypothesized that those with less favorable outcomes have been subject to low additionality, whereby landholders already conserving their land self-select into the program. Insights from the behavioral economics literature suggest that an external incentive, such as PES, has the potential to crowd in or crowd out individual behavior differentially across the initial distribution of intrinsic motivations (Frey, 1992). Thus, to increase the impact of PES, program administrators might gain from a better understanding of both the pre-existing motivations and existing baseline conservation behavior of potential participants. This paper contributes to the literature by disentangling and measuring intrinsic motivations, specifically: Pro-Environment, Pro-Social, Pro-Government, and Social Norms. Controlling for observable opportunity costs, we use these latent motivations to analyze behavioral determinants of take up for a conservation program in São Paulo, Brazil. The payments are an incentive to comply with the Brazil Forest Code. We find that Pro-Social and Pro-Environment landholders are both more likely to be conserving private land not under legal protection before the program is introduced, whereas only Pro-Social landholders are already conserving land under legal protection. With respect to enrollment in the PES program, we find Pro-Social landholders are less likely to enroll while Pro-Environment landholders are more likely to enroll. Thus we expect some level of additionality from the PES program. We discuss these findings in light of the theoretical framework on Self-Determination Theory (SDT).
  • Publication
    Improving Environmental Sustainability in Road Projects
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-02) Montgomery, Robert; Schirmer, Howard Jr.; Hirsch, Art
    The focus of this document is to provide a wide range of ideas and options to improve the inclusion of environmental sustainability throughout the road transportation project cycle (system planning, project planning and design, construction, and operation and maintenance) based on environmental sustainability indicators and highlighting environmentally sustainable products and materials for road construction. Sustainable economic growth in low- and middle-income countries is a key to poverty reduction and shared prosperity, which in part is dependent on reliable and safe transportation systems. Road and highway systems provide a critical function in creating and maintaining a desirable quality of life.
  • Publication
    Transitioning to Climate Resilient Development : Perspectives from Communities in Peru
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-05) Sperling, Frank; Validivia, Corinne; Quiroz, Roberto; Valdivia, Roberto; Angulo, Lenkiza; Seimon, Anton; Noble, Ian
    The livelihoods of communities in rural areas of Peru are predominantly dependent on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture. Given their close connection with the environment, the understanding of how these communities perceive risks and how they adapt to and cope with climate hazards is important for identifying entry points for efforts aimed at building resilience. In this context, it is assumed that the successful use of climate information will depend on appropriate information formats that fit the decision-making structure of communities as stakeholders and also have their trust. In connection with collecting information of community knowledge on environmental predictors of weather and climatic conditions and recommendations for capacity-building needs, it is hoped that the report will provide valuable, initial guidance on which elements play an important role in strengthening the adaptive capacity of communities to climate variability and change. The objective of part one is to place climate variability and change into the broader development of Peru and outline risk management structures. This overview will then be contrasted with the perceptions of risks and vulnerabilities and coping and adaptation strategies at the community level described in part two for Northwestern Peru and the altiplano, which are regions considered highly vulnerable to climate-related hazards. The report concludes by developing a set of overarching and locale-specific recommendations.
  • Publication
    Models for Recognizing Indigenous Land Rights in Latin America
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-10) Roldán Ortega, Roque
    This paper represents an important dimension in filling Latin America history's gaps through the lens of land rights. The continent was populated by many nations, functioned in harmony with nature, had a variety of cultures and languages, and, developed many different socio-economic systems (nationally and locally). These nations were sovereign and recognized from Alaska to Patagonia. Indeed, among all of them, we know they had very advanced, and well established institutional arrangements and organizations (formal and informal), created and nurtured with the view to respond to the needs, and challenges of the time. With a variety of forms of governance, these societies did assign rights, and responsibilities to the different actors, and groups in order to maintain an acceptable level of social cohesion, to establish important political consensus. As the political systems of some countries are now becoming more democratic to listening, and embracing the views of minorities, issues of land rights have clearly surfaced. Issues of sovereignty, customary law and, simply, of traditional norms-from the national to the household levels-are being put on the table of what is clearly a complex social dialogue. The paper is an excellent source of basic information, sharing an easy and practical understanding about land tenure/titling, as discussed above. In addition, the paper represents a genuine attempt to: a) recognize the existence of these complex land rights and land titling systems across Latin America; b) study the content at the country level, so that international experiences/comparisons may spark a move towards policy coherence and legislation; and, c) demonstrate that land is not only a physical asset with some economic and financial value, but an intrinsic dimension, and part of peoples lives and belief systems. There is also a human rights dimension to all of the above. And it is essential to understand this human rights dimension of land rights, not just as a legal obligation, but as a key element of economic and social development.
  • Publication
    Paying for Biodiversity Conservation Services in Agricultural Landscapes
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-05) Pagiola, Stefano; Agostini, Paola; Gobbi, José; de Haan, Cees; Ibrahim, Muhammad; Murgueitio, Enrique; Ramírez, Elías; Rosales, Mauricio; Ruíz, Juan Pablo
    This paper describes the contract mechanism developed for the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project, which is being implemented with financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project is testing the use of the payment-for-service mechanism to encourage the adoption of silvopastoral practices in three countries of Central and South America: Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. The project has created a mechanism that pays land users for the global environmental services they are generating, so that the additional income stream makes the proposed practices privately profitable.
  • Publication
    A Decade of Environment Management in Chile
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-07) Ruthenberg, Ina-Marlene; Caicedo, Claudia
    This publication presents an evaluation of the Environmental Institutions Development Project in Chile, selected by Bank management to be part of an intensive learning process in final project evaluation, given its contributing factor to the Bank's knowledge base on environmental institutional development projects. The first part of the publication focuses on the project as catalyst for culture change, and contains excerpts from lessons learned, with extensive input from the Project's implementing agency - Comision Nacional del Medio Ambiente (CONAMA) - government officials, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and academia. Such lessons indicate that in the absence of a national policy framework, particularly where a tradition of coordination in the subject does not yet exist, it is necessary to limit the project's objectives, but include an aggressive awareness promotion, and consensus on environmental issues, with a direct focus on human resources development in respect to environmental decision-making in sector agencies. The second part, reflects on the evolution of environmental institutional development, through working papers presented at, and compiled from the Seminar on Environmental Management, covering issues such as design, and progress in environmental management, the roles of the public, and private sectors, as well as that of civil society's perspectives. Further subjects acknowledge international influences from an industry's perspective on environmental quality, and impact, and, address how to strengthen the ties between environmental institutions, and the international community.
  • Publication
    Country Assistance Strategies and the Environment
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-07) Shyamsundar, Priya; Hamilton, Kirk; Segnestam, Lisa; Sarraf, Maria; Frankhauser, S.
    This report is the outcome of a Country Assistance Strategy and Environment program that was started and aimed to identify practical constraints to incorporating environmental concerns into CASs and to develop a logical framework for doing so. The analysis is based on two key efforts: a review of CASs undertaken in fiscal year 1999, and five participatory case studies of on-going CASs. The report presents a set of practical actions to improve the environmental quality of CASs based on the learning that emerged from the case studies and the environmental review: 1) integrating environmental considerations into country activities; 2) linking environmental efforts to poverty reduction; 3) strengthening the information base; and 4) improving the CAS process. After the introduction, Chapter 2 presents a review of fiscal year 1999 CASs and ranks them according to their treatment of environmental issues. Regional differences are discussed, best practices examined, and recommendations made for future CASs. The methodology used for the review is described in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 discusses the CAS process in five countries - Azerbaijan, Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Zambia. The chapter then examines practical challenges to mainstreaming environmental issues. The last chapter identifies lessons learned and presents recommendations.
  • Publication
    Tourism and the Environment in the Caribbean : An Economic Framework
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-03) Dixon, John; Hamilton, Kirk; Pagiola, Stefano; Segnestam, Lisa
    While tourism is one of the most important economic activities in the Caribbean, its reliance is based uniquely on the natural environment, indicating the resource base upon which all of this economic activity is based, is however fragile. Thus, sustainable tourism, and its economic benefits require ensuring that the environmental resources the sector relies on, are managed responsibly by the countries of the Caribbean, the tourism/travel industry, and the visitors themselves. The study examines the links between tourism, and environment, pointing at the magnitude of environmental threats, and the role of information, at creating strong incentives, addressing environmental problems certification schemes, to allow credible advertisement of its environmental quality. Capturing tourism economic "rents" - defined as an excess return to an asset - is viewed as a policy question for governments, on how to use these rents effectively. Mechanisms to capture rents include charging user fees when accessing a particular environmental resource, however, when environmental resources are public goods, user fees do not provide a practical means of capturing generated rents, thus more general taxation schemes are required. Based on this analysis, recommendations include the establishment of corporate income taxes, and moderate tariff rates for tourism inputs, establishing taxation, to be partly, and explicitly identified for environmental, and/or resource user fees.