5 March 2019 | | Lac au Duc, La Vigne, Tremblay-Omonville
Approximately 40 participants gathered at the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health in Rennes to discuss Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) and compare the progress of several projects being carried out in the West of France, including the Interreg CPES project.
The event was organized by the Brittany Region and the Center for Resource and Expertise on Water in Brittany (CRESEB). These events and organizing institutions form a Regional Monitoring Committee on Payments for Ecosystem Services established in 2018, with the Interreg CPES project being a partner since the beginning. This was the second seminar organized since the establishment of the committee.
The specific objective of the meeting on the 5th of March was to quantify the services provided by farmers entering a process of water resource protection and/or biodiversity (consent to receive) and evaluate the willingness to pay of potential buyers.
After a presentation about the evaluation of ecosystems and ecosystem services by Yann Kervinio, General Commissioner for Sustainable Development, progress presentations about the three studies on the four driving forces in Western France about PSE design and implementation were given, namely:
1) The Interreg CPES project, with a presentation on the evaluation of the monetary incentives that farmers would be prepared to accept in the 3 French case studies (Lac au Duc, Tremblay and Springs of la Vigne).
2) The Alli'Homme Initiative set up in the department of Finistère for the implementation of PES at the scale of wetlands, and carried out by the Brittany Chamber of Agriculture and the Departmental Federation of Agricultural Exploiters of Finistère.
3) The LabPES experiment set up by the Trame laboratory in Eastern Brittany and part of the Pays de la Loire region.
The event showed that of the projects involved, the Interreg CPES project was the only one to include a component aimed at economically evaluating the willingness of farmers to accept incentives, including the consideration of a possible risk premium. A third seminar will be organized next October and will focus on the effective implementation of PES contracts in the territories targeted by the studies.