5. JURISPRUDENCIA DEL DESPIDO NULO EN VENEZUELA
5.4 DEL AMPARO CONSTITUCIONAL
When seeking to evaluate the performance of FES payment schemes a range of questions emerges.
How should one measure the performance of such payment schemes? Should such an evaluation cover environmental consequences, economic and social impacts, or other things as well? What should be examined and evaluated – the actions of government, of local management, farmers’
behavior, or the whole policy process? What is the nature of performance evaluation in this research? Should the evaluation look at the consequences of a payment scheme that lie beyond the original objectives? How does one integrate economic evaluation into the equation?
The evaluation of the performance of a policy can indicate how well or badly the policy has been carried out. This evaluation can be based on different dimensions, such as effectiveness, economic efficiency, distributional equity, social impacts, accountability, fiscal sustainability, etc.
Environmental policies differ from most other public policies in that their ultimate target is not to influence patterns of human behavior, but to enhance the state of the biophysical environment by achieving changes in human behavior (EEA, 2001). The evaluation of payment policies will therefore focus both on the impact they have in changing the behavior of forest users and other stakeholders as well as the quality of forest ecosystem services.
The European Environmental Agency (EEA) (2001) has developed a framework for environmental policy evaluation which identifies a number of key elements that influence or mediate the influence that a policy measure has on human behavior and ultimately on the environment. By comparing these different elements it seeks to answer a broad set of evaluative questions. The framework they set out is an ex post summative, goal-free, method-based policy evaluation. This framework provides a starting point to formulate questions that can be used to evaluate payment schemes. These might include: Are the objectives of the payment policies justified in relation to needs of multiple stakeholders? Are the payment policies effective in providing the desired FES and against the cost? Do the outcomes and outputs meet the objectives of different stakeholders? Environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency are two central aspects of the evaluation. However, this framework only offers a static comparison between the objectives of a policy and its outcomes. What is the relationship between the institutional setting and the payment schemes? How do the payment schemes change forest use practices and thereby achieve the desired environmental effects? What is the pattern of interactions between the different actors within the local context under the payment schemes? The pattern of interactions can influence changes in forest use practices. Examining the patterns of interaction can not only unveil the functioning mechanism of payment schemes, but can also help to identify how to make them more effective and efficient. Therefore, the evaluative framework in this study is built on the policy process theory of payment schemes (understanding the interactions between the institutional setting, payment schemes and forest use practices), rather than on a method-based evaluation such as that proposed by the EEA, which only focuses on consequences of environmental policy.
EMT offers useful insights for understanding the policy process of payment schemes and constructing the evaluative framework. The theoretical foundation for developing payment schemes is to “economize ecology”. The extent to which FES are economized signifies how effectively the providers of services can be compensated. Furthermore, the process of economizing indirectly relies on the monitoring and coordination mechanism of the payment schemes. Therefore, the
efficiency and effectiveness of payment policies is closely related to the process and degree of economizing forest ecosystem services. The concept of political modernization not only refers to the changing role of the state, but also to an increase in participation in policymaking and implementation. Payment policies for FES differ from traditional governmental regulations in that they create opportunities to bring both forest stakeholders and beneficiaries into negotiations about the provision of FES. Such participation also has an impact on the accountability and legitimacy of payment schemes for FES and ultimately influences their efficiency and effectiveness. As a consequence, participation is an important aspect that should be built into policy evaluation. The following section elaborates further on the three main evaluative aspects.
1. Environmental effectiveness. Environmental effectiveness can be judged in terms of the extent to which the expected objectives of a policy measure are achieved (EEA, 2001). The main objectives of environmental policies are usually to improve environmental conditions or to reduce ecological risks. The effectiveness of a measure can be judged by comparing its environmental effects with its intended objectives. To measure the effectiveness of the payment schemes, it is necessary to explore the causal relationship between a scheme and its effects.
The payment schemes are a policy intervention intended to influence forest use practices and thereby create environmental benefits. It is important to measure these since the beneficiaries are more likely to be willing to pay for these services if they can clearly see the level of ecological services that the payment schemes generate. However, most of the PES programs in China do not include a clear and explicit framework for monitoring or evaluating their success in providing ecological services (Wunder, 2007). This raises a number of issues. It may be extremely difficult to measure the direct environmental effects of a policy, possibly because the biophysical data or monitoring techniques are not available or because the environmental consequences take some time to emerge. Equally there needs to be a point of reference to measure the effectiveness of a policy: a baseline projected on a “without-project” scenario with which the environmental effects can be compared. To avoid these difficulties, environmental effectiveness is defined here in terms of forest use practices, rather than pure physical data (or environmental outcomes). Thus human behavior is used as a proxy for measurements of physical environmental change (such as soil erosion, water quality and forest resource) since it is safe to assume that changes in behavior, such as a logging ban or fire controls will have a positive effect on conserving the forest ecosystem and the eco-services it provides.
2. Economic impact. The World Bank estimates that roughly a quarter of the world’s poor and 90 percent of the poorest depend substantially on forests for their livelihoods (Scherr et al., 2004). In China, most forests are found in officially designated “poor counties” (Li et al., 2000).
Forestry plays an important role in the livelihoods of the rural population as a subsistence safety net, a source of cash income, a capital asset and a source of employment (Scherr et al., 2004). Therefore, any policy relating to the forest ecosystem will have a profound impact on local livelihoods. International experiences show that PES are most effective when they aim at both achieving environmental goals and contributing to local livelihoods (Scherr et al., 2006).
It is therefore imperative to include economic impacts within the policy evaluation – whether or not the policy explicitly takes rural livelihoods into account. The livelihoods of local people depend on forest resources and the sustainability of the payment schemes is also determined by the intensity of the plausible negative impacts on their livelihood. Payment schemes can only
2. Theoretical perspectives on payment schemes for forest ecosystem services 51
work on a long-term basis if local communities benefit from them. While some researchers mention the potential of PES to increase the income of smallholders as suppliers of forest ecosystem services, concern has also been raised about the potential adverse impacts of such schemes on rural livelihoods.
Economic impact is a broad concept which includes both the direct and indirect influence of a policy. These impacts can be interrelated and they cover different geographical and time scales. Therefore it is necessary to define what kind of economic impact we are referring to.
To avoid a loss of focus, this thesis is mainly concerned with the economic impact arising directly from changes related to forest use practices. Payment schemes change the forest use practices of local communities and these new practices can have positive or negative economic impacts on the local population. The evaluation will therefore seek to establish the causal links between payment schemes, forest use practices and economic impacts. These links may be direct such as loss of income from timber sales or receipt of governmental payments. There might also be indirect links, such as small businesses that benefit from eco-tourism. In order to weigh these costs and benefits, a cost-benefit analysis has been employed to evaluate the economic impact of payment schemes on local forest users and owners.
3. Participation. Traditional environmental programs and projects which evolve as top-down, managerial policies seldom encourage, or recognize the importance of participation (Kosoy et al., 2008). Since the 1980s, many development and environmental programs and projects, especially those supported by international donors, have attempted to integrate a participatory component. Researchers have analyzed the factors that drive people’s participation in PES.
Most of this research has been carried out in Latin American countries such as Mexico and Costa Rica, where some key drivers for local participation have been identified. These include:
formal tenure titles (Grieg-Gran et al., 2005), access to financial resources (Miranda et al., 2003), the contribution that the PES makes to household income and the land opportunity cost (Pagiola et al., 2005; Wunder, 2005) and farm household characteristics (farm size, human capital and household economic situation) (Zbinden and Lee, 2005). However, such research has generally adopted a narrow definition of participation as the willingness and capacity of forest owners and users to enter into the PES programs. This definition of participation is not suitable for China’s payment schemes. In Latin America, PES is usually a voluntary transaction between buyers (governments or international donors) and ecological service providers. By contrast, the payment schemes in China are implemented by the government on a more or less compulsory basis. Therefore, participation at the entry stage does not reflect either the actual willingness of local forest owners/users to participate in such schemes or their involvement in policy implementation. To understand the participation mechanism in a broader sense, this thesis looks at participation in terms of the degree to which local farmers are involved in each stage of payment policies. For heuristic reasons, four such stages have been identified:
formulation, demarcation, management and examination. Through assessing participation at each of these policy stages, it is possible to assess how much room the current design of payment schemes in China provides for involvement of local actors and how they interact with each other. This assessment of participation also examines the accountability and legitimacy of the payment schemes. Participation in the formulation and demarcation stages can be taken as an indication of the support that local stakeholders provide to the government in its role
as policy maker and implementer. The extent to which local stakeholders support and accept the payment schemes will have important influence on the performance of such schemes in both the present and the future.
PES research has shown that these three aspects are closely related (Figure 2.5). A good participation mechanism can improve local livelihoods and thereby ensure a high rate of compliance. Participation can in itself improve trust and build shared understanding among actors, which can also directly change forest use practices (Grieg-Gran et al., 2005; Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002; Pagiola et al., 2005; Scherr et al., 2004).
EMT provides a theoretical perspective for interpreting environmental reforms in the forest sector. Payment schemes for FES can be an excellent example for demonstrating this transformation in China’s context. By borrowing instruments from different approaches to evaluating environmental policy, this thesis constructs an analytical framework to evaluate the performance of the payment schemes. The result will show the extent to which environmental improvements are taking place in the forestry sector and how the implementation of the payment schemes is changing forest use practices.
Environmental effectiveness
Economic
impact Participation
Figure 2.5. The interrelations between the three evaluative aspects.
Payment schemes for forest ecosystem services in China 53