Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES)
Eli Prins, Andries Polinder, Mark van Benthem, juni 2025
An exploration of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) to provide additional income for forest-dependent communities in Suriname
This report explores the potential of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) as a sustainable income source for forest-dependent Indigenous and Maroon communities in Suriname. The publication is part of the SUSTAME project.
While forest-dependent communities play a vital role in forest conservation, they face significant barriers to accessing sustainable income from timber and other forest products due to limited market access, investment capital, and technical capacity.
PES methods can facilitate income generation from ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity, water regulation, and ecotourism. However, monetization remains limited, especially in tropical countries like Suriname. With an established market for carbon credits, this is the most obvious ecosystem service that forest-dependent communities could monetize. While the forests of Suriname are already generating significant national carbon revenue, communities currently lack direct access to these funds. Other ecosystem services can potentially provide various income opportunities, such as water-based PES, ecotourism, and biodiversity credits. However, these mechanisms are often not yet operational, lack monetization pathways, or face other challenges, such as a lack of accessibility and infrastructure for tourists, or a lack of knowledge and finances to develop the specific ecosystem service payment mechanism.
The most promising PES pathway for Suriname’s communities is through the FSC certification process. The FSC certification for sustainable forest management first of all enables communities to prove their sustainable forest management practices. In addition, it provides opportunities to quantify and verify the impact of their improved forest management practices on forest ecosystem services. The FSC ecosystem services procedure could lead to ‘verified impact claims’ on ecosystem services, with a potential of monetization through sponsorships.
