The effects on values, beliefs and norms of Payments for Environmental Services: Evidence from a PES program in Colombia

Payment for Environmental Services (PES) are economic incentives seeking to promote conservation outcomes. PES is being widely used around the globe, however, questions regarding their effectiveness in protecting natural resources and their behavioral effects on those receiving the payments are still debated in scholarly circles.;Ganaderia Colombiana Sostenible (GCS) is a program seeking to incentivize cattle ranchers to pursue sustainable practices, particularly silvopastoral systems, in order to protect biodiversity in rural communities in five areas of Colombia. They are doing so by providing technical assistance to ranchers within their areas of interest and by implementing a PES scheme in regions of particular interest for biodiversity conservation. Our research was conducted in one of these regions with three different rancher groups: a group receiving PES and technical assistance, a group receiving technical assistance but no PES; and a control group receiving neither PES nor technical assistance. In this research we investigated a) the challenges of implementing a PES program and b) how the payments from the program might affect the values, beliefs and norms of the ranchers receiving the payments. We found that transaction costs and monitoring were crucial factors in the implementation of these programs. In addition, we found significant differences in the values, beliefs and norms among the ranchers receiving PES compared to the other two groups.;The differences in the values, beliefs and norms across the three groups raise crucial questions to be investigated further, such as whether the PES program is creating these differences, or if ranchers with these characteristics are self-selecting to join the program.