Bio-currencies: An Alternative to Payments for Environmental Services (PES)

• Main Authors: Santiago de Francisco Vela, Miguel Navarro-Sanint, Leidy Lorena Rodriguez Pinto, María Belén Castellanos Ramírez, Catalina Ramírez Díaz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Los Andes 2020-01-01
• Series: Dearq
• Subjects: bio-currencies; conservation strategies; participatory design; rural communities; environmental services
• Online Access: https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/ref/10.18389/dearq26.2020.07

In Colombia’s Amazon piedmont, the cattle industry is one of the most important productive activities (IGAC 2016) due to a high demand and to the sturdy infrastructure built upon it that satisfies peasants’ economic stability. However, in piedmont ecosystems, which shelter a great number of species and water springs, this industry has caused massive and irreversible environmental losses for community profit. As a result, how can communities’ productive practices be adapted to reduce the environmental impact within their territories? Payments for Environmental Services (PES), for which landowners receive money (or other spurs) in exchange for conservation efforts, have been a way to redirect communities’ activities. Nevertheless, PES has not proven to be a long-term solution. We studied the cattle industry system in depth (production, distribution, commercialization) in a community located in San Vicente del Caguán, and found that stakeholders have used non-traditional currencies that determine and influence several of their productive behaviors. We focus on identifying the (economic and non-economic) interests that foster certain behaviors as they might allow us to re discover and revalue the existing bio-currencies that trigger specific efforts, not only to stop (or reduce) deforestation rates, but to start (or increase) active recovery actions in highly affected areas. Bio-currencies could then be defined as alternative economic instruments that do not involve monetary transactions and do not try to compete with them. Their purpose is to trigger less harmful productive practices for the environment.