Institutional Mechanisms for REDD+ - Case Studies Working Paper

Funds for the system come from water-usage fees (collected by the national water commission, Comisión
Nacional del Agua [CONAGUA]) and budgetary transfers allocated by Congress. The money is managed by a
National Forest Fund that currently contains $100 million, $30 million of which come from CONAGUA.
Money from the Fund is allocated to the following three areas:
� ProÁrbol‘s PES;
� The Biodiversity Conservation Endowment; and
� A program ($10 million per year) to establish/support local 50/50 matching PES funds for areas that
CONAFOR cannot support fully. The local matching PES funds are usually managed by the team
executing the project but have some oversight from CONAFOR.
Link between land rights and communities’ access to benefits:
Legal ownership is a requirement for program participants. Applicants should demonstrate legal ownership of
the land, and communities and ejidos should be registered in the Registro Agrario Nacional (National Agrarian
Registry) or demonstrate that the registration is in process.
Benefit-sharing functions:
Payments are made annually to either the community representatives or to land owners directly through bank
transfers based on an annual fixed payment (Table 1.1; Figure 1.2). The rate is pre-determined every year for
different forest ecosystems based on their conservation priority and the opportunity cost of preserving forests
vis-à-vis profits obtained from agriculture and livestock. Rates are based on analyses by the National Ecology
Institute (INE) using data from the main government commercial agriculture credit agency to estimate
average annual profit for growing corn and for livestock production. The results are used as a baseline to
determine rates that are designed to optimize the investment of a limited amount of resources while covering
as much area as possible (Munoz-Piña, 2007).
CONAFOR does not intervene or include conditions in the contract about the governance of funds within
communities. It appears that in a significant number of cases the community leaders distribute the money
directly to members of the community. 9
TABLE 1.1: FIXED PAYMENT RATES IN THE PROGRAMA DE SERVICIOS AMBIENTALES
HIDROLÓGICOS (WATER ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES PROGRAM) (FROM GRAF &
IGLESIAS, 2010) 10
Priority Ecosystems
(INEGI classification)
Deforestation risk
(evaluated by INE)
Rate
(dollars/ha/year)
No.
Hectares
(2010 cycle)
I Cloud forest Very high $93.00 88,452
II Cloud forest High, medium and low $60.00 1,853,404
III Tropical evergreen forests Very high, high, medium, low
and very low
$46.00 7,388,413
IV Conifer forests, sub-deciduous Very high and high, medium, $32.00 25,307,783
forests, and oak and pine
forest
low, and very low
V Deciduous forests and
deciduous thorn (dry) forests
Very high and high $32.00 5,681,210
9 Interviews with Paola Bauche, José Maria Michel, Sofia Magdalena Garcia Sanchez and Victor Hugo Martinez Cíntora.
10 Torres-Gonzalez, J. El programa de pago por servicios ambientales en México. Presentation; Gobierno de México.
PRRGP INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS FOR REDD: CASE STUDIES – WORKING PAPER 7