Payments for environmental services in Costa Rica

  • 30/04/2008

  • Ecological Economics

Costa Rica pioneered the use of the payments for environmental services (PES) approach in developing countries by establishing a formal, country-wide program of payments, the PSA program. The PSA program has worked hard to develop mechanisms to charge the users of environmental services for the services they receive. It has made substantial progress in charging water users, and more limited progress in charging biodiversity and carbon sequestration users.