Promoting effective forest PES through the EU financial and state aid programs

Introduction

PES schemes are considered a promising economic instrument for diversifying income to forest owners and rural communities, while supporting biodiversity and climate mitigation. However, benefits from the provision of ecosystem services are rarely rewarded, and the application is often limited to small scale, often within pilot-stage initiatives.

Project Objectives

Building from the experiences of key Forest PES Horizon projects (SINCERE, InnoForESt, and Nobel), the LIFE ProForPES project aims at:

1. Collecting, synthesising, and integrating the knowledge and know-how already present at the national and EU level on PES and PES-like schemes.
2. Investigating the weaknesses and strengths of the selected cases through an assessment framework that will be developed for the project's aim.

Institutional Analysis

Secondly, the project will investigate the readiness and possibilities to integrate PES and PES-like schemes within the EU financial program and the state aid framework. This will be achieved through an in-depth institutional analysis of the existing gaps and potentialities present within the two frameworks.

Stakeholder Consultation

The analysis of the current policy and financial EU programs, flanked by a robust consultation process with key stakeholders, will provide the knowledge needed to design appropriate policy and business recommendations. These recommendations will focus on:

• PES and PES-like schemes integration
• Potentiality, which will ultimately contribute to sustainable forest ecosystem services provision in Europe
• Achieving key targets of the EU Biodiversity Strategy

Partnership and Support

The LIFE ProForPES will ensure high-level results and impacts through a strong EU-wide partnership, involving:

• The European Forest Institute as an EU research network
• Three universities with specific backgrounds on the topic
• PES implementers such as Etifor

The project has the relevant support from EU and national forest owners and protected areas associations, including:

• The Ministry of Agricultural, Forest and Food Policies
• FSC Italy
• CEPF
• EUSTAFOR