Impactos socioeconômicos e ambientais de pagamentos por serviços ambientais em regiões tropicais: uma revisão sistemática

Abstract

Tropical forests are essential ecosystems for global climate stability, but their conservation is constantly threatened by socioeconomic development pressures. In this context, Payments for Environmental Services (PES) have emerged as an economic instrument designed to reconcile environmental protection with income generation through the creation of financial incentives for ecosystem preservation. Although PES programs are proliferating across various tropical regions, evidence of their impacts remains dispersed, hindering a consolidated analysis of their effectiveness. This research conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of PES in tropical regions. Through strict methodological screening guided by the PRISMA protocol, 71 impact evaluation articles based on causal inference were selected. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that, although the instrument can generate additionality, the magnitude of its environmental and socioeconomic impacts is predominantly weak, representing 57.7% (41 out of 71) of the evaluated article sample. The results demonstrate that this fragility in the magnitude of impacts frequently stems from problems such as adverse selection bias, remunerating landowners for inaction in areas without imminent deforestation risk. Furthermore, the database revealed a pronounced concentration in the extreme magnitude categories, with 85.9% (61 out of 71) of the studies reporting impacts classified as weak or strong. In certain contexts, this dynamic evidenced a trade-off between conservation and poverty alleviation, especially when land-use restrictions affect populations dependent on rural work or without secure access to land. The study concludes that the effectiveness of the instrument does not stem solely from financial transfers, requiring an institutional design focused on active spatial targeting, strict conditionality, and financing for productive transition.