An Evaluation of the Impact of Payments for Ecosystem Services using a Randomized Control Trial

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) aim to incentivize land users to manage their land in ways which benefit society. However, as with many complex socio-ecological interventions, robust evaluation of PES is challenging and rare. Using a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) we evaluate whether a conservation program in the Bolivian Andes, which incentivizes landowners to avoid deforestation and exclude cattle from riparian forests, delivers improvements in microbial water quality (as measured by Escherichia coli contamination), and reduces deforestation. Baseline data was collected in 2010 in 129 communities which were then randomly allocated to a treatment or control group. The evaluation ran …