TITLE:
Building a Methodology for the Design of an Environmental Services Payment Programme for the Mangroves of Mexico
AUTHORS:
Tania García López
KEYWORDS:
Mangroves, Mexico, Environmental Services, Payment Programme
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Ecology,
Vol.8 No.3,
March
20,
2018
ABSTRACT: Environmental
Services Payment Programmes are not entirely new and they are more flexible
than the usual command-and-control type of regulation. In the 1990s for
example, an Environmental Services Payment programme was introduced to cope
with the forestry system and pay benefits to farmers for the good that their
forests would produce. This review examines the possibility of using
Environmental Services Payment programmes for Mexican mangroves as they are an
important resource against natural disasters, and reducing greenhouse gases in
the Earth’s atmosphere, for example, and they are constantly invaded by the
human race which impacts on their destruction. The review aims at constructing
a methodology that can be applied to the implementation of Environmental
Services Payment programmes. The value of this study is in aiming a straight
arrow at the environmental problems outlined in this paper, problems that have
not been fully resolved to date, especially in Mexico where it is not
officially recognised that mangroves play an important role in the mitigation
of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, Environmental Services Payment Programmes in
Mexico have not pinpointed specific types of area. We conclude this paper with elaborating on our ten-point strategy for
implementing Environmental Services Payment programmes which includes, in
brief: 1) Fully accepting the importance of the mitigation of greenhouse gases
via mangroves; 2) designing a Environmental/Ecosystem Services Payment Programme
with particular emphasis on Mexican mangroves; 3) identifying specific
environmental services and their level from local to international; 4)
formation and implementation of a system of “whoever benefits must pay”; 5)
building of a knowledge base of owners and others who benefit from
environmental services; 6) hypothetical models of particular Environmental
Services Payment programmes must be constructed; 7) clarifying who must pay; 8) grouping all sectors that must pay; 9)
inspiring all actors to cooperate via 10) the impact of a Citizens’ Council,
for example.