Although the objective of all PES programs is the acquisition of some type of ecosystem service, the reasons why organizations or governments would incentivize the production of these services are diverse. For example, the largest and longest-running PES program in the world is the United States Conservation Reserve Program,[12]​ which pays about $1.8 billion dollars annually through 766,000 contracts with farmers and landowners to "lease" a total of 34,700,000 acres (140,426 km²) of what it considers "environmentally sensitive land."[13]​ These farmers agree to plant "long-term resource conservation covers to improve water quality, control soil erosion, and improve habitats for waterfowl and wildlife." This program has existed in one form or another since the beginnings of the American Dust Bowl, when the federal government began paying farmers to avoid farming on low-quality, erodible land.

In 1999, the Chinese central government announced an even more expensive project under its $43 billion Grain for Green program, in which it offers farmers grain in exchange for not clearing forested hillsides for agriculture, thereby reducing erosion and saving streams and rivers from siltation. Notably, some sources cite the cost of the entire program at $95 billion. There are other, less extensive PES projects. nationally funded, such as programs in Canada, the European Union, Japan and Switzerland.

North America

In Jamestown, Rhode Island, United States, farmers generally harvest hay from their fields twice a year. However, this practice destroys the habitats of many local grassland birds. Economists from the University of Rhode Island and EcoAssets Markets Inc. raised money from Jamestown residents who were willing to help the birds. The investments ranged from $5 to $200 per person and raised a total of $9,800. This money was enough to compensate three Jamestown farms for the cost of reducing their annual crops and obtaining their hay from another source. In this way, the birds have enough time to nest and leave the fields, without suffering the stress of the hay harvest. In this example, farmers benefit because they only have to harvest their fields once a year instead of twice, and taxpayers benefit because they value the lives of the birds more than the money they contributed to the project.

Salt Lake City, Utah, United States has managed the majority of its watershed since the 1850s through multi-jurisdictional regulatory mechanisms, such as specifying permitted uses (and restricting them), and purchasing land or usufructs with the goal of conserving the land. This strategy preserves ecosystem services, while allowing for widely used recreation, such as skiing, snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking, and fishing.[15] Existing land uses are generally unaffected, and commercial enterprises are restricted to low- or no-impact tourism-related activities.

Central and South America

The program in Los Negros, Bolivia is a small user-funded program of bundled payments for watershed and biodiversity services initiated by the local NGO Fundación Natura Bolivia in 2003.[16] The target area of ​​the program is the watershed in the Los Negros Valley that serves the city of Santa Rosa and other downstream cities. In August 2007, 2,774 hectares of native vegetation were enrolled in the program with 46 landowners.

Initially, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service provided funding for the program, before the Municipality of Pampagrande began making payments for the services.[16] One of the most unique aspects of the program is the owners' specific request to be paid in kind with beehives, stating that they wanted their compensation to last beyond a simple cash transfer. Along with the hives, those who receive the payment can also receive training in beekeeping. It also allowed those who prefer cash to sell their hives.

An organizational obstacle to the program is that some farmers fear the scheme is just a way to dispossess them of their land. This was an important factor in the decision to receive payment in kind, as it is perceived as a minor attempt at land appropriation. Natura is addressing this problem by maintaining a constant presence in the community and leveraging social media to convince farmers of the benefits of the program.[16]​.

Another issue concerns the buyer of the program service. The municipality of Pampagrande has received limited support from service users to contribute to program payments. This structure essentially provides environmental services to intermediary users essentially free of charge. Natura is working to implement a strategy through which the beneficiaries of environmental services contribute directly to their maintenance.[16]​.

Evaluation of the program has been hampered by two factors, namely a lack of baseline data and insufficient data as the program develops. These are important to establish the additionality of the program. However, this problem is not exclusive to Los Negros, as many programs lack sufficient monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.[16]​.

In Jesús de Otoro, Honduras, the Cumes River is the city's main source of clean water. Coffee farmers dumped their waste into the river upstream, contaminating the source and directly affecting downstream consumers.[17]​ To solve this problem, the local Council for the Administration of Water and Sewage Disposal (JAPOE) created a payment program to benefit coffee farmers upstream and city residents living downstream. Downstream villagers paid about $0.06 per household per month to JAPOE, who redirected the money to upstream farmers. Farmers complied with guidelines such as constructing irrigation ditches, proper waste management, and use of organic fertilizers.

Pico Bonito Forests, near La Ceiba, Honduras, is a for-profit, mission-driven enterprise between the Pico Bonito National Park Foundation and the EcoLogic Development Fund. Carbon credits are generated by planting native trees to capture or sequester carbon dioxide. The credits are then sold through the World Bank's Biocarbon Fund to countries seeking to meet their carbon emissions reduction targets. The project offers a unique business model because it is jointly owned by investors and communities near the forest park. Community members earn income and share profits by implementing sustainable forestry practices that capture carbon. By 2017, the project is expected to capture .45 to .55 Mt of carbon through reforestation and agroforestry and up to an additional .5 Mt of carbon through avoiding deforestation, as destructive practices are replaced with sustainable practices.[18]​.

The Scolel Té program in Chiapas, Mexico, aims to create a market for positive externalities from shade-grown coffee plantations. Designed by the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management at the University of Edinburgh together with the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Management, using the Plan Vivo System, Scolel Té is a PES program under which farmers accept responsible farming and reforestation practices in exchange for payment of carbon offsets. The NGO Ambio manages Scolel Té. Farmers submit their reforestation plans to Ambio, which judges their financial benefits and the amount of carbon sequestration associated with each plan. Farmers then receive payments from the Bioclimatic Fund, managed by Ambio. Funding for the BioClimatic Fund comes from the sale of Voluntary Emission Reduction (VER) to private groups at a price of $13 per ton of sequestered carbon.

Africa

The Hoima and Kibaale PES took place from 2010 to 2013 and were especially unique because it was the first PES program established specifically for a randomized control trial to empirically determine its impact on deforestation.[19]​[20]​ In the treatment villages, forest land owners paid $28 per year over the course of two years for each hectare of forest land left untouched, with the possibility of an additional payment for planting new trees. The payment scheme amounted to 5% of the average annual income for the typical homeowner.

Evaluation of the program found that there was significantly less deforestation in participating villages (2–5%) than in control villages (7–10%).[19]​.

It is important to note that the program did not continue beyond the evaluation period, and it is assumed that previous forestry practice will resume once landowners stop receiving payments from the program.[19]​[20]​.

Although the objective of all PES programs is the acquisition of some type of ecosystem service, the reasons why organizations or governments would incentivize the production of these services are diverse. For example, the largest and longest-running PES program in the world is the United States Conservation Reserve Program,[12]​ which pays about $1.8 billion dollars annually through 766,000 contracts with farmers and landowners to "lease" a total of 34,700,000 acres (140,426 km²) of what it considers "environmentally sensitive land."[13]​ These farmers agree to plant "long-term resource conservation covers to improve water quality, control soil erosion, and improve habitats for waterfowl and wildlife." This program has existed in one form or another since the beginnings of the American Dust Bowl, when the federal government began paying farmers to avoid farming on low-quality, erodible land.

In 1999, the Chinese central government announced an even more expensive project under its $43 billion Grain for Green program, in which it offers farmers grain in exchange for not clearing forested hillsides for agriculture, thereby reducing erosion and saving streams and rivers from siltation. Notably, some sources cite the cost of the entire program at $95 billion. There are other, less extensive PES projects. nationally funded, such as programs in Canada, the European Union, Japan and Switzerland.

North America

In Jamestown, Rhode Island, United States, farmers generally harvest hay from their fields twice a year. However, this practice destroys the habitats of many local grassland birds. Economists from the University of Rhode Island and EcoAssets Markets Inc. raised money from Jamestown residents who were willing to help the birds. The investments ranged from $5 to $200 per person and raised a total of $9,800. This money was enough to compensate three Jamestown farms for the cost of reducing their annual crops and obtaining their hay from another source. In this way, the birds have enough time to nest and leave the fields, without suffering the stress of the hay harvest. In this example, farmers benefit because they only have to harvest their fields once a year instead of twice, and taxpayers benefit because they value the lives of the birds more than the money they contributed to the project.

Salt Lake City, Utah, United States has managed the majority of its watershed since the 1850s through multi-jurisdictional regulatory mechanisms, such as specifying permitted uses (and restricting them), and purchasing land or usufructs with the goal of conserving the land. This strategy preserves ecosystem services, while allowing for widely used recreation, such as skiing, snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking, and fishing.[15] Existing land uses are generally unaffected, and commercial enterprises are restricted to low- or no-impact tourism-related activities.

Central and South America

The program in Los Negros, Bolivia is a small user-funded program of bundled payments for watershed and biodiversity services initiated by the local NGO Fundación Natura Bolivia in 2003.[16] The target area of ​​the program is the watershed in the Los Negros Valley that serves the city of Santa Rosa and other downstream cities. In August 2007, 2,774 hectares of native vegetation were enrolled in the program with 46 landowners.

Initially, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service provided funding for the program, before the Municipality of Pampagrande began making payments for the services.[16] One of the most unique aspects of the program is the owners' specific request to be paid in kind with beehives, stating that they wanted their compensation to last beyond a simple cash transfer. Along with the hives, those who receive the payment can also receive training in beekeeping. It also allowed those who prefer cash to sell their hives.

An organizational obstacle to the program is that some farmers fear the scheme is just a way to dispossess them of their land. This was an important factor in the decision to receive payment in kind, as it is perceived as a minor attempt at land appropriation. Natura is addressing this problem by maintaining a constant presence in the community and leveraging social media to convince farmers of the benefits of the program.[16]​.

Another issue concerns the buyer of the program service. The municipality of Pampagrande has received limited support from service users to contribute to program payments. This structure essentially provides environmental services to intermediary users essentially free of charge. Natura is working to implement a strategy through which the beneficiaries of environmental services contribute directly to their maintenance.[16]​.

Evaluation of the program has been hampered by two factors, namely a lack of baseline data and insufficient data as the program develops. These are important to establish the additionality of the program. However, this problem is not exclusive to Los Negros, as many programs lack sufficient monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.[16]​.

In Jesús de Otoro, Honduras, the Cumes River is the city's main source of clean water. Coffee farmers dumped their waste into the river upstream, contaminating the source and directly affecting downstream consumers.[17]​ To solve this problem, the local Council for the Administration of Water and Sewage Disposal (JAPOE) created a payment program to benefit coffee farmers upstream and city residents living downstream. Downstream villagers paid about $0.06 per household per month to JAPOE, who redirected the money to upstream farmers. Farmers complied with guidelines such as constructing irrigation ditches, proper waste management, and use of organic fertilizers.

Pico Bonito Forests, near La Ceiba, Honduras, is a for-profit, mission-driven enterprise between the Pico Bonito National Park Foundation and the EcoLogic Development Fund. Carbon credits are generated by planting native trees to capture or sequester carbon dioxide. The credits are then sold through the World Bank's Biocarbon Fund to countries seeking to meet their carbon emissions reduction targets. The project offers a unique business model because it is jointly owned by investors and communities near the forest park. Community members earn income and share profits by implementing sustainable forestry practices that capture carbon. By 2017, the project is expected to capture .45 to .55 Mt of carbon through reforestation and agroforestry and up to an additional .5 Mt of carbon through avoiding deforestation, as destructive practices are replaced with sustainable practices.[18]​.

The Scolel Té program in Chiapas, Mexico, aims to create a market for positive externalities from shade-grown coffee plantations. Designed by the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management at the University of Edinburgh together with the Edinburgh Center for Carbon Management, using the Plan Vivo System, Scolel Té is a PES program under which farmers accept responsible farming and reforestation practices in exchange for payment of carbon offsets. The NGO Ambio manages Scolel Té. Farmers submit their reforestation plans to Ambio, which judges their financial benefits and the amount of carbon sequestration associated with each plan. Farmers then receive payments from the Bioclimatic Fund, managed by Ambio. Funding for the BioClimatic Fund comes from the sale of Voluntary Emission Reduction (VER) to private groups at a price of $13 per ton of sequestered carbon.

Africa

The Hoima and Kibaale PES took place from 2010 to 2013 and were especially unique because it was the first PES program established specifically for a randomized control trial to empirically determine its impact on deforestation.[19]​[20]​ In the treatment villages, forest land owners paid $28 per year over the course of two years for each hectare of forest land left untouched, with the possibility of an additional payment for planting new trees. The payment scheme amounted to 5% of the average annual income for the typical homeowner.

Evaluation of the program found that there was significantly less deforestation in participating villages (2–5%) than in control villages (7–10%).[19]​.

It is important to note that the program did not continue beyond the evaluation period, and it is assumed that previous forestry practice will resume once landowners stop receiving payments from the program.[19]​[20]​.