Payment for Environmental Services as an economic instrument of incentive

Abstract

The change in the socioeconomic structure of nations with population growth, as well as man’s position in relation to the environment in which it is inserted, corroborate the fact that man-nature interaction has passed, especially in the last decades, a healthy exchange ratio, for an exploratory of natural resources. This time, agriculture based on monoculture, the application of inputs and the use of pesticides, considered as conventional, has become one of the most harmful activities to the environment. Despite this, the transition from conventional to agroecological agriculture still faces social, legal, environmental and economic barriers, despite having the tools to consolidate economic stimuli. One of the mechanisms that has emerged in contemporary times as a tool to encourage sustainable practices is the Payment for Environmental Services (PES), which conditions the receipt of a benefit to the provision of an environmental service. The objective of this work was to verify if the economic instrument called PES can actually contribute to the transition from modern/conventional agriculture to agroecological. The approach adopted to achieve this purpose was qualitative through a descriptive study. As a result, it was identified that although there is no regulation by the federal government, attempts at state level to implement the PES are emerging. In this same sense, although a real situation of application between PES and agroecology has not been found, the bibliographic reference indicates that the use of this instrument for this purpose can represent a step forward in what stimulates the transition to a sustainable agriculture