EXPECTED COMPLETION TIME FOR THIS SURVEY: 10-20 MINUTES

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and similar programs (Compensation for ES, Reciprocal Agreements, etc.) are increasingly being used all over the world as policy tools to help improve or maintain the provision of environmental services (ES) such as water quality and quantity, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity, to name a few. Currently there is a debate as to whether these programs should focus solely on the provision of the ES or whether social concerns should be prioritized as well, such as the reduction of poverty.

Those who think that the provision of ES should be the primary objective of payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs argue that including social objectives in these programs risks decreasing their effectiveness. Additionally, they claim that other types of programs are better suited to help low-income groups. On the other hand, some policy makers favor the inclusion of social concerns into these programs, arguing that both environmental and poverty-alleviation concerns should be balanced against one another.

The goal of this study is to investigate how different PES programs around the world have prioritized the provision of ES over other concerns or have instead tried to balance multiple objectives at once.

We are contacting you to ask if you would be willing to share your knowledge on a particular PES program that you are familiar with in order to help future programs be as successful as possible.

This survey is the product of a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3). If you have any questions regarding the survey or your participation, please send an email to: PES.Survey@bc3research.org. We would also like to encourage you to share any relevant documentation that would give us a better understanding of your program to that email address.

Participation in this questionnaire is voluntary and participants will not receive financial or other types of compensation. Any personal information you choose to provide will be confidential and anonymous. The data collected will be stored securely at the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) according to the policies of the research center. With the aim of reaching the greatest possible number of PES programs, we would be grateful if you would help us share this survey.

Whenever you are ready to begin the questionnaire, please continue to the next section.