Does China's major Payment for Ecosystem Services program meet the “gold criteria”? Targeting strategies of different decision-makers

Payment for Ecosystem Service (PES) was perceived as an instrument to reconcile ecological conservation and poverty alleviation. Targeting the gold criteria-high ecological additionality, low opportunity costs and pro-poverty- is the key to achieving the multiple goals, but evidence on PES targeting evaluation remains piecemeal, less considering the roles of decision-makers. This study contributes to this work by figuring out the targeting strategies and the vital criteria in the world's largest PES program- China's Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) and its new stage (NSLCP). Based on the survey data of households and land plots, this paper aims to answer two questions: one is how well the program targeted the gold criteria in terms of desired ecological benefits, cost-effectiveness and equity; the other is how well the governments’ and landholders’ targeting strategies performed compared to the gold criteria. The results showed that the targeting criteria that significantly affected land or household enrollment included slope, location, opportunity costs, income poverty, etc. It indicates the program did not meet gold criteria, with a good targeting for ecological benefits and cost-effectiveness but still lack of equity in distribution of enrollment, benefits and rights. It also empirically demonstrated that the roles of decision-makers played a part in targeting process, and rights distribution during program implementation would turn out different targeting outcomes. More specifically, the governments’ targeting strategies were more unified and stronger environmental-oriented than the landholders’. They cared more about its performance and costs for implementation and monitoring over the landholders’ opportunity costs. Moreover, in governments’ targeting strategies, income poverty was an obstacle to NSLCP participation, although the poor participants would bring more cost-effective outcomes and favor the sustainability of the program. Government-selected parcels owned greater losses and higher reconversion risk than those targeted by landholders. Therefore, this study suggests to develop scientific index system and techniques for targeting and evaluation, and to improve autonomy distribution and payment schemes, for achieving maximum targeting outcomes in ecological, economic, and pro-poor benefits.