Environmental Services

Abstract

"As a first comer to the IASCP Congress, I was pleased to see the engagement of both practitioners and academicians from the North and the South. Clearly part of this mixture was promoted by the location in Oaxaca facilitating much more Latin American participation, as well as a superb organizing effort by Leticia Merino and all her team. However, I also believe it has to do with the incorporation of the theme Payment for Environmental Services. There was a clear resonance in the introduction of the theme for the first time in an IASCP Congress - of Payment for Environment Services, (henceforth referred to as Compensation for Environmental Services or CES). Indeed, the topic of CES from the perspective of Rural Communities has tremendous potential in moving Common Property Resources (CPR) work more closely and directly to simultaneously combating rural poverty while promoting sustainable natural resources management. Currently, the stated focus of CPR work and theory is centered on improving the institutions for the management of environmental resources, and while a concern for improving rural communities is present, this focus is implicit, not explicit. The adoption of CES as a ongoing thread in future CPR seminars and congresses offers a concrete way to explicitly incorporate CPR practice and theory to the dual issues of equity and natural resource management."