RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
4.2.7 Conservation finance through Payment for Ecosystem Services
decision-making tool when considering applications related to the development and establishment of protected areas, and can have a potential to enhance an estuarine conservation vision.
4.2.7 Conservation finance through Payment for Ecosystem Services
While environmental protection is vital, in ensuring long-term conservation of estuaries a fundamental challenge facing estuary management and protection and the environment broadly is finding ways to financially support environmental programmes and to employ sufficient and skilled personnel, for regulation and enforcement activities. National enforcement and compliance with legislation cannot be guaranteed if local capacity is weak. Proactive financial commitments need to be made in all spheres of government for implementation of services and infrastructure in relation to coastal management.
Estuaries should be regarded as an asset and managed to maintain their value. Society cannot survive without the environment and the economy cannot grow if there is severe damage to the environment as it is the environment that provides resources. The economic losses attributed to the reduced quality and habitat destruction of estuaries is enormous. One mechanism by which conservation finance has been approached is through Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES). This mechanism has been used as a vehicle for generating funds that can be used to finance conservation projects as well as an incentive for more sustainable land use in inhabited landscapes.395 It can offer an efficient and effective means of supporting sustainable development objectives.396Since estuaries are one of the ecosystems that can perform such vital roles in the environment and co-operative environmental governance struggles for funds, PES schemes become a relevant instrument for their sustainable management.
395 World Bank Payments for environmental services and the poor: Initial Lessons and guidelines.
Environment Department, World Bank (2005). Available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/esa/roa/ppt/May05-Pagiola.pdf (accessed 30 June 2017).
396 UNEP/IUCN Developing International Payments for Ecosystem Services: Towards A Greener World Economy (2007) 2 available at http://unep.ch/etb/areas/pdf/IPES_IUCNbrochure.pdf (accessed 30 June 2017).
Using alternative mechanisms, such as, PES to mobilise resources for conservation projects with a focus on estuaries can be beneficial. This market based mechanism encourages biodiversity and resource conservation and sustainable natural resource management while simultaneously benefitting the guardians of those services. Herbst had suggested the use of PES for the conservation of wetlands in South Africa.397 This can be cost effective for South African environmental government and it has been proven to be a successful mechanism in several developed and developing countries for restoring the functioning of the natural environment and providing economic returns to those responsible for having done so.398 The PES is defined as a:
‘Market based instrument which facilitates the payment by a beneficiary to a landowner or intermediary parties for activities which achieve enhanced ecosystem services, for example sustaining the integrity of a wetland to provide for the natural purification of water. The beneficiary can be industry, private parties or organs of State who would benefit from the action of the landowners or intermediary parties.’399
The protection of biodiversity and securing the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services is the primary focus of the PES. Some authors have identified particular risks as well as benefits with the idea of PES as an effective way of achieving conservation.400 Herbst further outlines the disadvantages and advantages of introducing PES for wetlands,such as, creating awareness and opportunities to improve on environmental policy where it is not adequate and to achieve cross-compliance.401 It
397 Herbst DL Wetlands: An ecosystem service South Africa can afford to protect. A critical evaluation of the current legal regime and mechanisms to facilitate the use of payment for ecosystem services to the conservation of wetlands in South Africa ((unpublished MPhil thesis, University of Cape Town 2015).
398 Russi D, Brink P, Farmer A et al The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Water and Wetlands (2013) 43-4.
399 Grieber Payment for Ecosystem Services, Legal and Institutional Frameworks 6 “what makes PES a PES is that in any payment arrangements those who pay are aware that they are paying for an ES which is valuable to them or their constituencies – and those that receive the payments engage in meaningful and measurable activities to secure the sustainable supply of ecosystem services in question.
400 Redford KH & Adams WM ‘Payment for Ecosystem Services and the Challenge of Saving’ (2009) 23 (4) Nature Conservation Biology, 785–7.
401 Herbs 2015: 48. Such advantages are: The PES focuses directly on the enhancement and protection of ecosystem services and encourages broader participation by parties who otherwise would not have been exposed to the benefits which their activities could have on a sustainable future; and create awareness and opportunities to improve on environmental policy where it is not adequate and achieve
is constantly argued that the best tool for conservation of our estuary resources is education, and encouraging education and awareness programmes. Colvin et al recognised ‘building capacity for co-operative governance as a basis for integrated water resource managing.’402 The improvement of estuaries depends on good academic training and staff motivation.403 Without funds it is impossible to achieve this, and to capacitate people with skills and knowledge and to get enough human capacity to be able to administer and enforce environmental legislation; therefore sufficient funding to cater for all of these is required and this can guarantee effective co-operative governance in implementing the constitutional mandate. These include interventions targetting ecosystem based adaptation to climate change that could drive rural development models. In developing countries like South Africa, PES has the potential to alleviate poverty through creating purpose and innovation for poor communities.404 By introducing PES in relation to estuaries, the greatest benefits can be generated for the greatest number of people by an estuary at minimised cost to society. Payments for such services may be voluntary, from public stakeholders such as governments, or may be mandated by the government to be paid by private enterprises. National Treasury can play a huge role in facilitating access to funding and allocating funds collected from various environmental taxes towards estuary management as it is responsible for managing South Africa's national government finances. Government should set up a trust fund to channel money that is coming from both public and private sources to guarantee the effective administration of PES. The trust fund could come with advantages of ensuring continuity and transparency in conservation activities and
cross compliance. It encourages the consideration of tradeoffs and measuring the effectiveness of existing policies.
402 Colvin J, Ballim F; Chimbuya S et al. ‘Building capacity for co-operative governance as a basis for integrated water resource managing in the Inkomati and Mvoti catchments, South Africa’ (2008) 34 (6) Water SA 681.
403 Young GJ, Dooge JCI & Rodda JC ‘The development of human resources at the individual level and the promotion of awareness of water issues’ in Young GJ, Dooge JCI and Rodda JC Global Water Resource Issues (1994) 149.
404 Kronenberg J & Hubacek K ‘Could payments for ecosystem services create an “ecosystem services curse?’ (2013) 18(1) Ecology and Society 10.
provide long-term conservation financing. The administration of funds could be facilitated by institution, such as, SANBI and Conservation South Africa.405