Literature in the vulnerability of socio-ecological systems has highlighted the need for considering Social Perception of Risk (SPR) as a determinant of social vulnerability. This paper combines quantitative and qualitative approaches for analyzing SPR in the context of a socio-ecological system. We analyze the SPR of loss or degradation of water provision and erosion control in the Northern Andes (Riogrande basin, Antioquia-Colombia).

Livestock grazing, along with agriculture, are key drivers of deforestation and land degradation that subsequently affect ecosystem service provision in the tropics. Although environmental and agricultural policies may curtail these negative effects, information is needed on how specific programs and instruments could be used to incentivize ranchers into adopting rangeland practices to achieve land conservation. We examine what encourages livestock ranchers to adopt more sustainable rangeland practices with various technical and conservation attributes in Colombia’s Orinoco region.

Zero-deforestation commitments are a type of voluntary sustainability initiative that companies adopt to signal their intention to reduce or eliminate deforestation associated with commodities that they produce, trade, and/or sell. Because each company defines its own zero-deforestation commitment goals and implementation mechanisms, commitment content varies widely. This creates challenges for the assessment of commitment implementation or effectiveness.

Globally, there is an increasing level of funding targeted to pay farmers and rural communities for the provision of ecosystem services, for example through Payments for Ecosystem or Environmental Services (PES) schemes and pilots for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, and maintaining or enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD +). Therefore, there is growing interest in understanding the effects of economic incentives on participants' behavior and motivations.

Most of the literature on the causes of tropical deforestation has focused on the proximate and distal causes. However, research exploring the psychological drivers of deforestation, i.e., motivations, is still scant despite being crucial to understand the processes of land-use change and individual decision making within social-ecological systems. We studied the combined effect of structural and individual causes of deforestation, with particular emphasis on motivations, for a sample of rural households in Colombia’s foremost tropical deforestation frontier.

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes incentivise landowners to maintain, restore or enhance ecosystem services. Currently, there are more than 550 active PES programmes worldwide, expected to support conservation efforts and, ideally, to also reduce rural poverty. In this article we explore the discourses that underpin PES debates and practice in Colombia, a late-comer to the PES agenda in Latin-America. Informed by interviews with PES actors and Q-methodology (n = 41), we identify three PES discourses: conservation conduit, contextual conservation, and inconvenient conservation.

Payments for environmental services (PES) constitute a growing approach to achieve the sustainability of ecosystems and the benefits they provide to people. However, informal tenure and lack of capacity to enforce property rights impede implementation of PES initiatives. Such challenges are common for local communities in coastal and marine areas who overexploit Common-Pool Resources (CPR) under open access. Assigning property rights to organized users has been implemented as a solution, transforming a public good into a club good.

El objetivo del presente artículo es proponer una reflexión que contribuya a una mejor y más precisa comprensión de lo que implica la formación en competencias ciudadanas según lo evaluado en las Pruebas Saber. En la primera sección se reflexionará en torno a la función primordial en el orden axiológico político que tienen los valores y los principios constitucionales en la Carta política colombiana. En la segunda, se expondrán los diversos valores y principios constitucionales que deben servir de piso conceptual para el ejercicio pleno de la ciudadanía democrática.

In S. Lele, S. Brondizio, J. Byrne, G. Mace, J. Martinez-Alier (Eds.), Rethinking environmentalism: linking justice, sustainability and diversity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp.251-286.