Assessing the effectiveness of payments for ecosystem services for diversifying rubber in Yunnan, China

Monoculture rubber plantations are rapidly expanding throughout Southeast Asia. The Prefecture of Xishuangbanna is characterised as both an epicenter of Chinese biodiversity and rubber production. The rapid conversion of native primary forest into rubber plantations has introduced tensions between the competing political goals to conserve biodiversity and heritage landscapes - both driving the rapidly emerging tourism industry - and economic aspirations at household and district levels. In China, decision makers discuss payments for ecosystem service schemes to resolve these tensions. As a component of the policy development process, this research project was invited to inform the political debate. Agent-based simulations revealed perverse outcomes of payments for ecosystem services, intended to encourage the conversion of monoculture rubber into agroforestry rubber. As an outcome of this modelling-based initiative, managing agencies have revised previously drafted payment schemes and reconsidered the importance of monitoring and regulatory approaches. We assess the effectiveness of payment for ecosystem services (PES) in the context of biodiversity and land use change.Our study shows that the current PES design in China can lead to perverse outcomes and a further increase of rubber.This result emerged from agent-based simulations and was then validated by stakeholders in a participatory research process.This work shifted the debate to effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms as a prerequisite for institutional change.

[1]  David J. Lieske,et al.  Coping with climate change: The role of spatial decision support tools in facilitating community adaptation , 2015, Environ. Model. Softw..

[2]  Ashton Shortridge,et al.  Assessing the effectiveness of payments for ecosystem services: an agent-based modeling approach. , 2014 .

[3]  Bruce Edmonds,et al.  The Importance of Representing Cognitive Processes in Multi-Agent Models , 2001 .

[4]  Jianchu Xu,et al.  Landscape transformation through the use of ecological and socioeconomic indicators in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China, Mekong Region , 2014 .

[5]  Daniel G. Brown,et al.  Empirical characterisation of agent behaviours in socio-ecological systems , 2011, Environ. Model. Softw..

[6]  Min Cao,et al.  Demand for rubber is causing the loss of high diversity rain forest in SW China , 2007, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[7]  Nicholas Mark Gotts,et al.  Comparison of empirical methods for building agent-based models in land use science , 2007 .

[8]  Alex Smajgl,et al.  Visions, beliefs, and transformation: exploring cross-sector and transboundary dynamics in the wider Mekong region , 2015 .

[9]  PETER H. VERBURG,et al.  Modeling the Spatial Dynamics of Regional Land Use: The CLUE-S Model , 2002, Environmental management.

[10]  E. Bohensky,et al.  Patterns in household-level engagement with climate change in Indonesia , 2013 .

[11]  Zhang Jin-mu.  Research on Dynamic Simulation of Beijing Land Covering & Changing by Applying Agent Modeling , 2004 .

[12]  Thomas Brenner,et al.  Agent Learning Representation - Advice in Modelling Economic Learning , 2004 .

[13]  N. Marshall,et al.  Understanding Variability in Adaptive Capacity on Rangelands , 2013 .

[14]  Jianchu Xu,et al.  Mekong Hydropower Development , 2011, Science.

[15]  D. Fudenberg,et al.  The Theory of Learning in Games , 1998 .

[16]  Min Cao,et al.  Tropical forest vegetation of Xishuangbanna, SW China and its secondary changes, with special reference to some problems in local nature conservation , 1995 .

[17]  Zhuang-Fang Yi,et al.  Developing indicators of economic value and biodiversity loss for rubber plantations in Xishuangbanna, southwest China: A case study from Menglun township , 2014 .

[18]  Zong-Liang Yang,et al.  Future precipitation changes and their implications for tropical peatlands , 2007 .

[19]  Xijun Yu,et al.  Modelling urban expansion using a multi agent-based model in the city of Changsha , 2010 .

[20]  Grace B. Villamor,et al.  Biodiversity in rubber agroforests, carbon emissions, and rural livelihoods: An agent-based model of land-use dynamics in lowland Sumatra , 2014, Environ. Model. Softw..

[21]  Ron Sun,et al.  Simulating Organizational Decision-Making Using a Cognitively Realistic Agent Model , 2004, J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul..

[22]  Hongmei Li,et al.  Past, present and future land-use in Xishuangbanna, China and the implications for carbon dynamics , 2008 .

[23]  R. Gifford,et al.  Soil carbon stocks and land use change: a meta analysis , 2002 .

[24]  Patrick Taillandier,et al.  Standardised and transparent model descriptions for agent-based models: Current status and prospects , 2014, Environ. Model. Softw..

[25]  Peter A. Troch,et al.  Local hydrologic effects of introducing non‐native vegetation in a tropical catchment , 2008 .

[26]  B. Bryan,et al.  Exploring the Cost Effectiveness of Land Conservation Auctions and Payment Policies , 2008 .

[27]  Steve Bankes,et al.  Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis , 1993, Oper. Res..

[28]  Grace B. Villamor,et al.  Human decision making for empirical agent-based models: construction and validation , 2012 .

[29]  J. Gareth Polhill,et al.  The ODD protocol: A review and first update , 2010, Ecological Modelling.

[30]  Wenjie Liu,et al.  Clearance and fragmentation of tropical rain forest in Xishuangbanna, SW, China , 2009, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[31]  Erin Bohensky,et al.  Behaviour and space in agent-based modelling: Poverty patterns in East Kalimantan, Indonesia , 2013, Environ. Model. Softw..

[32]  Charles C Mann,et al.  Addicted to rubber. , 2009, Science.

[33]  A. Vatn.  An institutional analysis of payments for environmental services , 2010 .

[34]  Charles H. Cannon,et al.  Can carbon-trading schemes help to protect China's most diverse forest ecosystems? A case study from Xishuangbanna, Yunnan , 2014 .

[35]  X. Jianchu.  The Political, Social, and Ecological Transformation of a Landscape , 2006 .

[36]  Li An,et al.  Agent-based modeling of the effects of social norms on enrollment in payments for ecosystem services. , 2012, Ecological modelling.

[37]  Robert K. Colwell,et al.  Species Loss and Aboveground Carbon Storage in a Tropical Forest , 2005, Science.

[38]  Brian Castellani,et al.  Sociology and Complexity Science , 2009 .

[39]  G. Nigel Gilbert,et al.  Agent-Based Models , 2007 .

[40]  Anthony J. Jakeman,et al.  Selecting among five common modelling approaches for integrated environmental assessment and management , 2013, Environ. Model. Softw..

[41]  Huang Shao-yun.  Study on Impacts of Rubber Industry on Ecological Environment of Xishuangbanan , 2008 .

[42]  S. Chen,et al.  Developing a spatially-explicit, sustainable and risk-based insurance scheme to mitigate human–wildlife conflict , 2013 .

[43]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  EMERGENT COMPLEX SYSTEMS , 1994 .

[44]  Jianchu Xu,et al.  Integrating Sacred Knowledge for Conservation: Cultures and Landscapes in Southwest China , 2005 .

[45]  L. P. Koh,et al.  Southeast Asian biodiversity: an impending disaster. , 2004, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[46]  Daniel Müller,et al.  A framework for modeling payments for ecosystem services with agent-based models, Bayesian belief networks and opinion dynamics models , 2013, Environ. Model. Softw..

[47]  Zhao-lu Wu,et al.  Rubber cultivation and sustainable development in Xishuangbanna, China , 2001 .

[48]  D. Melick,et al.  Rethinking the Effectiveness of Public Protected Areas in Southwestern China , 2007, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[49]  Ashton M. Shortridge,et al.  Exploring Complexity in a Human–Environment System: An Agent-Based Spatial Model for Multidisciplinary and Multiscale Integration , 2005 .

[50]  William Rand,et al.  Agent-based and analytical modeling to evaluate the effectiveness of greenbelts , 2004, Environ. Model. Softw..

[51]  Guirui Yu,et al.  Rubber plantations act as water pumps in tropical China , 2011 .

[52]  Birgit Müller,et al.  A standard protocol for describing individual-based and agent-based models , 2006 .

[53]  Jianchu Xu,et al.  The Rubber Juggernaut , 2009, Science.

[54]  Li Zhang,et al.  New challenges facing traditional nature reserves: Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) conservation in China. , 2006, Integrative zoology.

[55]  Robert L. Goldstone,et al.  Effect of rule choice in dynamic interactive spatial commons , 2008 .

[56]  J. Gareth Polhill,et al.  Agent-based land-use models: a review of applications , 2007, Landscape Ecology.