Justice notions in Payment for Environmental Services: insights from China’s sloping land conversion programme

Abstract

For over a decade, the Chinese government has implemented the Sloping Land Conversion Programme (SLCP), the world’s largest payments for ecosystem services (PES) programme. It uses public payments to convert marginal cropland located in upper watersheds into forests, engaging millions of mountain-dwelling households in the process1. The SLCP has received significant criticism from researchers in China and abroad in term of its effectiveness, efficiency and fairness2. However, after some adjustments, the SLCP has also generated successful outcomes in terms of expanding tree cover and improved livelihoods. Based on an in-depth case study from the Yangliu watershed in Yunnan province3, this chapter explores the underlying reasons for the SLCP’s environmental and economic successes by analysing how different stakeholders frame their justice concerns in the SLCP. It suggests that the SLCP has been successful because, among other factors, its implicit model of justice has sufficiently overlapped with local officials’ and villagers’ notions of justice