Private sector initiatives certifying that producers of goods and services adhere to defined environmental process standards are increasingly popular worldwide. According to proponents, they can circumvent chronic barriers to effective public sector environmental regulation in developing countries.

The authors estimated the deforestation impact of Costa Rica’s pioneering environmental services payments program (Pagos por Servicios Ambientales, or PSA) between 2000 and 2005. Despite finding that less than 1 in 100 of enrolled land parcels would have been deforested annually without payments, the program’s potential for impact was increased by explicitly targeting areas with deforestation pressure and increasing some payments to enroll land that would have been cleared.

Measuring and analyzing the impact of fanya juu bunds on the value of crop production in Ethiopian highlands with high rainfall had the surprising conclusion that this technology reduced soil erosion and off-site effects at the expense of lower value of crop production and, hence, poor Ethiopian farmers.