Pagamento por serviços ambientais como política pública de segurança hídrica e desenvolvimento regional: análise de estratégias de comitês de bacias hidrográficas

Abstract

Public policies play an important role, either for regulation or for the execution of actions that guarantee the effectiveness of environmental management, especially of water resources in Brazil. In addition to the command and control rules, economic incentive policies such as Payment for Environmental Services (PES) can be leveraged with the charge for the use of water resources – an instrument established by the National Water Resources Policy act (Law 9433/1997), reflecting as few others concrete applications of user-payer concept as a mirror to the provider-receiver concept. This paper aims to identify and analyze opportunities and gaps in the application of the water use charge mechanism and in the watershed committees’ internal strategies to promote the PES as an effective water security and regional development policy. For such, the management and planning instruments of the Piracicaba, Capivari, and Jundiaí River Watershed Committees and the respective watershed agencies were analyzed exploring on how these instruments meet the minimum conditions necessary for a PES initiative to succeed, as well as identifying the means that guaranteed internal buy-in so that the scheme would succeed. Results indicate that the fee collection instrument has a great potential, as a perennial source of resources, to place PES as an effective nature-based solution for water security, in addition to being a great tool to promote regional development. However, the study demonstrates that, even if led by basin committees, the PES requires addressing various other legal, methodological, and structural issues for the initiatives to be sustainable and not to face discredit, especially from potential payers. Based on the case study, recommendations and learnings are reported, aiming to influence similar actions by other watershed committees. As an indirect and scattered outcome, the results can contribute to the improvement of public policies in Brazil and strengthen the argument that conserving nature is a clever way to solve problems of water resources management, which is an essential condition for regional development.