What types of investment can most cost-effectively ensure ecosystem service provision? A randomized program evaluation

减缓森林砍伐和森林退化的最有效方法是什么？我们如何才能最好地增加非木材森林产品的收入？教育和信息的提供能否导致行为的真实的改变，从而更好地保护生态系统服务？经过几十年的努力，我们试图更好地保护亚马逊森林及其提供的生态系统服务，但我们仍然不知道这些问题的答案是什么。此外，尽管生态系统服务很重要，但我们几乎没有证据表明哪些政策干预措施能够最好地确保提供服务和减轻贫困。因此，一个基本的需要是发展“方案评估”方法，以测试政策或干预措施的有效性。在中海拔地区的玻利维亚，如同在发展中世界的许多地方一样，农业决定产生了不利的环境外部因素，降低了环境服务的质量和数量。森林退化往往与大面积放牧有关，降低了水质和水量，增加了与山体滑坡和洪水有关的风险。维护这些亚马逊河上游流域森林符合全球和地方利益，因为它们在减缓气候变化方面发挥作用，而且保护这些森林将有助于地方社区通过维持旱季供水来适应气候变化。尽管这些生态系统对当地减贫具有重要意义，但当地社区放牧的牲畜数量继续超过森林的承载能力，从而造成了公地悲剧，森林砍伐、水污染和洪水增加，人类福祉受到损害。我们提出的研究将探索行为改变的替代机制，以减轻森林退化造成的负外部性。我们的第一个假设是，通过提供有针对性的地方信息，或以其他方式建设地方机构能力，我们可以降低社区一级的集体行动障碍，这将使地方能够通过制裁或积极补偿来实施激励措施。作为另一种假设，外部捐助者通过直接付款，可能更好地为改进放牧做法提供这种奖励（即为环境服务付款的一种形式）。一个严格的实验设计将使我们能够确定提供有针对性的信息和财政激励措施，并由此产生的行为和生物物理结果的措施之间的关系。通过在项目第二年分阶段付款，我们还将观察集体行动与外部提供的激励措施之间的相互作用。虽然这些活动听起来比较深奥，但这项研究的意义将是深远的。我们将开发和完善最适合评估生态系统服务提供的项目评估工具，然后提供第一个强有力的实验分析，说明什么对环境服务提供和扶贫有效，以及为什么有效。我们的研究将表明，如果捐助者有例如50万英镑用于适应气候变化，那么在封存二氧化碳、保护供水或改善生计方面，投资于当地能力建设、信息提供或直接支付计划是否对他们最有效。

What is the most effective way to slow deforestation and forest degradation? How can we best increase incomes from collection of non-timber forest products? Can education and information provision lead to real changes in behavior that better protects ecosystem services? After decades of attempts to better protect Amazonian forests and the ecosystem services that they provide, we still have no idea what the answers are to these questions. Further, notwithstanding the importance of ecosystem services, we have little evidence about which policy interventions can best ensure service provision and alleviate poverty. A fundamental need is thus for the development of 'program evaluation' methods in order to test policy or intervention effectiveness. In mid-altitude Bolivia, as in many parts of the developing world, agricultural decisions generate negative environmental externalities, reducing the quality and quantity of environmental service provision. Forest degradation, often associated with extensive cattle grazing, diminishes water quality and quantity and increases risks associated with landslides and flooding. There is a global and local interest in maintaining these upper Amazonian watershed forests both for their role in mitigating climate change, but also because their conservation will help local communities adapt to climate change through the maintenance of dry season water supplies. Despite the importance of these ecosystems for local poverty alleviation, local communities continue to graze more cattle than the carrying capacity of the forests, thus creating a tragedy of the commons in which deforestation, water pollution and flooding increase, and human welfare suffers. Our proposed research will explore alternative mechanisms for behavior change to mitigate the negative externalities that result from forest degradation. Our first hypothesis is that by providing targeted local information, or otherwise building local institutional capacity, we can lower collective action barriers at the community level, which will allow for locally imposed incentives through sanctions or positive compensation. As an alternative hypothesis, external donors, through direct payments, may better provide such incentives for improved grazing practices (i.e. a form of payments for environmental services). A rigorous experimental design will allows us to identify generalisable relationships between the provision of targeted information and financial incentives and resulting behavioral and biophysical outcome measures. By phasing in payments in the second year of the project, we will also observe the interaction between collective action and externally provided incentives. Although the list of activities sounds relatively esoteric, the implications of this research will be profound. We will develop and refine the program evaluation tools that are most appropriate for evaluations of ecosystem service provision, and then provide the first robust experimental analysis of what works for environmental service delivery and poverty alleviation and why. Our research will show that if a donor has, e.g. £500,000 to spend on climate change adaptation, whether it will it be most efficient for them, in terms of CO2 sequestered, water supplies protected, or livelihoods enhanced, to invest in local capacity building, information provision or direct payments schemes.