Abstract
The implementation of payment for environmental services (PES) schemes in public protected areas raises several questions in economic, social, and environmental domains. In this paper, we analyze the case of Brazil’s Bolsa Floresta Program (BFP), established in the Protected Areas of the state of Amazonas and considered one of the largest programs in the world in terms of area of coverage. First, we verify whether the program meets the requirements of a typical PES: conditionality, additionality, and voluntariness. Secondly, we seek to evaluate the two key requirements for a PES to perform well: economic effectiveness and ecological sustainability. Studying the case of the Uatumã Sustainable Development Reserve (Uatumã SDR), we determine that the payments made do not cover the provider–receivers’ opportunity costs, which results in non-delivery of the contracted environmental services. The total area of secondary forest (SF) available to be incorporated into successive crop cycles might not be large enough to allow fallow periods of a long enough duration for soil fertility to recover fully. The intensification of agricultural activities in SF areas may lead to a degradation of the traditional agricultural system and a consequent loss of the ecosystem services that this system can potentially provide. In sum, these negative impacts indicate that, at least in the Uatumã SDR, the BFP might not be effective in the medium to long term.