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Reply to: In defence of simplified PES designs

Nature Sustainability volume 3, pages 428–429 (2020)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 01 June 2020

replying to G. Wells et al. Nature Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0544-3 (2020)

Wells et al.1 argue that our Analysis about the design and implementation of payments for environmental services (PES)2 is misguided in at least two respects. First, we supposedly framed our analysis on “economistic” design and implementation concerns, thus relegating broader social-ecological contexts and drivers, in particular local legitimacy (and related concerns of equity and fairness). Second, our claim that PES is being practiced in oversimplified ways would ignore that simplification of PES project design can be socially and scientifically justifiable, because it is then “easily understandable and seen as fair”. Our call for greater PES sophistication would thus seem to be misplaced.

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References

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Author information

Author notes

  1. S. Wunder

    Present address: European Forest Institute, Barcelona, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for International Forestry Research, Lima, Peru

    S. Wunder

  2. University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    S. Wunder

  3. The Water Institute, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    R. Brouwer

  4. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    R. Brouwer

  5. University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany

    S. Engel

  6. CIRAD, UPR Forêts et Sociétés, Montpellier, France

    D. Ezzine-de-Blas

  7. Montpellier University, Montpellier, France

    D. Ezzine-de-Blas

  8. Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niteroi, Brazil

    R. Muradian

  9. Basque Centre for Climate Change, Leioa, Spain

    U. Pascual

  10. Basque Foundation for Science, Ikerbasque, Spain

    U. Pascual

  11. University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    R. Pinto

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  1. S. Wunder
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S.W. wrote the paper, assisted by all co-authors.

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Correspondence to S. Wunder.

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Wunder, S., Brouwer, R., Engel, S. et al. Reply to: In defence of simplified PES designs. Nat Sustain 3, 428–429 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0545-2

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