IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v65y2008i4p788-798.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The working for water programme: Evolution of a payments for ecosystem services mechanism that addresses both poverty and ecosystem service delivery in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Turpie, J.K.
  • Marais, C.
  • Blignaut, J.N.

Abstract

A payments for ecosystem services (PES) system came about in South Africa with the establishment of the government-funded Working for Water (WfW) programme that clears mountain catchments and riparian zones of invasive alien plants to restore natural fire regimes, the productive potential of land, biodiversity, and hydrological functioning. The success of the programme is largely attributed to it being mainly funded as a poverty-relief initiative, although water users also contribute through their water fees. Nevertheless, as the hydrological benefits have become apparent, water utilities and municipalities have begun to contract WfW to restore catchments that affect their water supplies. This emerging PES system differs from others in that the service providers are previously unemployed individuals that tender for contracts to restore public or private lands, rather than the landowners themselves. The model has since expanded into other types of ecosystem restoration and these have the potential to merge into a general programme of ecosystem service provision within a broader public works programme. There is a strong case for concentrating on the most valuable services provided by ecosystems, such as water supply, carbon sequestration, and fire protection, and using these as 'umbrella services' to achieve a range of conservation goals. The future prospects for expansion of PES for hydrological services are further strengthened by the legal requirement that Catchment Management Agencies be established. These authorities will have an incentive to purchase hydrological services through organisations such as WfW so as to be able to supply more water to their users.

Suggested Citation

  • Turpie, J.K. & Marais, C. & Blignaut, J.N., 2008. "The working for water programme: Evolution of a payments for ecosystem services mechanism that addresses both poverty and ecosystem service delivery in South Africa," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 788-798, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:65:y:2008:i:4:p:788-798
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(07)00616-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B.W. van Wilgen & D.M. Richardson & D.C. Le Maitre & C. Marais & D. Magadlela, 2001. "The Economic Consequences of Alien Plant Invasions: Examples of Impacts and Approaches to Sustainable Management in South Africa," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 145-168, June.
    2. Turton, A. & Henwood, R., 2002. "Hydropolitics in the developing world: a southern African perspective," IWMI Books, Reports H030980, International Water Management Institute.
    3. Turton, A. & Henwood, R., 2002. "Hydropolitics in the developing world: a southern African perspective," IWMI Books, Reports H044409, International Water Management Institute.
    4. Turpie, Jane K., 2003. "The existence value of biodiversity in South Africa: how interest, experience, knowledge, income and perceived level of threat influence local willingness to pay," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 199-216, September.
    5. Paulo A.L.D. Nunes & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2003. "The Ecological Economics of Biodiversity," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2993, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Molden, David & Sakthivadivel, Ramasamy & Samad, Madar & Burton, Martin, 2005. "Phases of river basin development: the need for adaptive institutions," Book Chapters,, International Water Management Institute.
    2. Halkos, George E. & Jones, Nikoleta, 2012. "Modeling the effect of social factors on improving biodiversity protection," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 90-99.
    3. Baral, Nabin & Stern, Marc J. & Bhattarai, Ranju, 2008. "Contingent valuation of ecotourism in Annapurna conservation area, Nepal: Implications for sustainable park finance and local development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 218-227, June.
    4. De Valck, Jeremy & Vlaeminck, Pieter & Liekens, Inge & Aertsens, Joris & Chen, Wendy & Vranken, Liesbet, 2012. "The sources of preference heterogeneity for nature restoration scenarios," Working Papers 146522, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    5. Komarek, Timothy M. & Lupi, Frank & Kaplowitz, Michael D., 2011. "Valuing energy policy attributes for environmental management: Choice experiment evidence from a research institution," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5105-5115, September.
    6. Inga Jacobs, 2012. "A community in the Orange: the development of a multi-level water governance framework in the Orange-Senqu River basin in Southern Africa," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 187-210, May.
    7. Mark Giordano & Diana Suhardiman & Jacob Peterson-Perlman, 2016. "Do hydrologic rigor and technological advance tell us more or less about transboundary water management?," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 815-831, December.
    8. Speelman, Stijn & D'Haese, Marijke F.C. & Buysse, Jeroen & D'Haese, Luc, 2007. "Technical efficiency of water use and its determinants, study at efficiencies in small-scale irrigation schemes in North-West Province, South Africa," 106th Seminar, October 25-27, 2007, Montpellier, France 7904, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Anders Jägerskog and David Phillips, 2006. "Managing Trans-boundary Waters for Human Development," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2006-08, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    10. Malzbender, D. & Goldin, J. & Turton, A. & Earle, A., 2005. "Traditional water governance and South Africa\u2019s \u201cNational Water Act\u201d: Tension or cooperation?," IWMI Books, Reports H038755, International Water Management Institute.
    11. Ressurreição, Adriana & Gibbons, James & Dentinho, Tomaz Ponce & Kaiser, Michel & Santos, Ricardo S. & Edwards-Jones, Gareth, 2011. "Economic valuation of species loss in the open sea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 729-739, February.
    12. Tisdell, Clem & Wilson, Clevo & Swarna Nantha, Hemanath, 2008. "Contingent valuation as a dynamic process," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1443-1458, August.
    13. Juan-Pedro Garces-Voisenat & Zinnia Mukherjee, 2012. "Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Environmental Resources in the Chilean Patagonia," Working Papers 105, Wake Forest University, Economics Department.
    14. Svendsen, Mark & Wester, Philippus & Molle, Francois, 2005. "Managing river basins: an institutional perspective," Book Chapters,, International Water Management Institute.
    15. Jette Jacobsen & Nick Hanley, 2009. "Are There Income Effects on Global Willingness to Pay for Biodiversity Conservation?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(2), pages 137-160, June.
    16. Kniivila, Matleena, 2006. "Users and non-users of conservation areas: Are there differences in WTP, motives and the validity of responses in CVM surveys?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 530-539, October.
    17. Bellie Sivakumar, 2014. "Planning and management of shared waters: hydropolitics and hydropsychology - two sides of the same coin," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 200-210, June.
    18. Godwin Kofi Vondolia & Håkan Eggert & Ståle Navrud & Jesper Stage, 2014. "What do respondents bring to contingent valuation? A comparison of monetary and labour payment vehicles," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 253-267, November.
    19. Molle, François & Wester, Philippus & Hirsch, Philip, 2010. "River basin closure: Processes, implications and responses," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 569-577, April.
    20. Christie, Mike & Fazey, Ioan & Cooper, Rob & Hyde, Tony & Kenter, Jasper O., 2012. "An evaluation of monetary and non-monetary techniques for assessing the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services to people in countries with developing economies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 67-78.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:65:y:2008:i:4:p:788-798. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.