Mexico faces both high deforestation and severe water scarcity. The Payment for Hydrological Environmental Services (PSAH) Program was designed to complement other policy responses to the crisis at ...the interface of these problems. Through the PSAH, the Mexican federal government pays participating forest owners for the benefits of watershed protection and aquifer recharge in areas where commercial forestry is not currently competitive. Funding comes from fees charged to water users, from which nearly US$18 million are earmarked for payments of environmental services. Applicants are selected according to several criteria that include indicators of the value of water scarcity in the region. This paper describes the process of policy design of the PSAH, the main actors involved in the program, its operating rules, and provides a preliminary evaluation. One of the main findings is that many of the program's payments have been in areas with low deforestation risk. Selection criteria need to be modified to better target the areas where benefits to water users are highest and behavior modification has the least cost, otherwise the program main gains will be distributive, but without bringing a Pareto improvement in overall welfare.
Because conventional command-and-control environmental regulation often performs poorly in developing countries, policymakers are increasingly experimenting with alternatives, including voluntary ...regulatory programs. Research in industrialized countries suggests that such programs are sometimes ineffective, because they mainly attract relatively clean participants free-riding on unrelated pollution control investments. We use plant-level data on more than 100,000 facilities to analyze the Clean Industry Program, Mexico’s flagship voluntary regulatory initiative. We seek to identify the drivers of participation and to determine whether the program improves participants’ environmental performance. Using data from the program’s first decade, we find that plants recently fined by environmental regulators were more likely to participate, but that after graduating from the program, participants were not fined at a substantially lower rate than nonparticipants. These results suggest that although the Clean Industry Program attracted dirty plants under pressure from regulators, it did not have a large, lasting impact on their environmental performance.
Biosphere Reserves (BR) manage large territories with diverse natural covers and land uses to preserve biodiversity, promote local development and preserve ecosystems. This study evaluated how their ...zoning (buffer and core) and policy timeframes (decree period, management plan period, and land planning period) influence four landscape management outcomes: deforestation, natural cover recovery, and anthropic and natural permanence. For three Mexican BR case studies, land use and cover transitions were calculated and compared to contrafactual sites. Observed rates of land cover change were marginal within all three BR zoning and across their policy timeframe (<0.02 % change rate), suggesting that BR effectively promote the permanence of both natural and anthropic covers. Nevertheless, the predicted probability of uncommon deforestation and recovery outcomes at local levels showed that the effect of a BR over its regulated landscape is not spatiotemporally static, contrasting the effect of individual allocation vs a group or network. Poverty, land tenure, agriculture aptitude and distance to markets adds to this dynamic and is modelled and discussed. This study shows that BR zoning schemes and its regulatory sequence influence the rates of land cover change and the predicted probability of landscape management outcomes across space and time.
•Protected area effectiveness analyses is usually measured by curving deforestation.•It usually disregards other landscape management outcomes, regulatory periods and zoning.•Rates of land use and cover change and predicted probabilities on landscape management outcomes are complementary.•Poverty, land tenure, agriculture aptitude and distance to markets have heterogenous effects on coastal Biosphere Reserves.•The effect of Biosphere Reserves on the coastal landscape is not spatiotemporally static, but dynamic.
Coastal areas host nearly 30 % of the world population and are among the most diverse and disturbed environments on Earth. In consequence, spatial policies have been implemented to manage this ...socio-ecological complexity from different perspectives. Protected Areas (PA) and Land Planning (LP) have been co-implemented worldwide, but they have divergent objectives: the former seeks ecosystem preservation, while the latter seeks land use development. Despite the importance PA and LP have in coastal management worldwide, we found little information on how they interact and what effects does this policyscape have on the coastal landscape. To bridge this information gap, this paper proposes a novel method to assess the interaction of overlapping PA and LP, by employing land cover and population density proxy indicators in order to determine if they are complementary or inhibitory. Using the terrestrial coast of Mexico as a case study, we found that all coastal regions exhibited overlaps between PA and LP: from the 101 instruments analyzed, 60.4 % showed overlap but they only corresponded to 5.9 % of the total Mexican terrestrial coast. The similarities between the natural cover type in PA and its overlap with LP (both ≈89 %) suggest that a complementary interaction between both instruments exists in the terrestrial coast of Mexico. Nevertheless, our results found that overlapped PA had 11 % of anthropic cover and a slightlu y higher population density (62 people/km2) than PA alone (11.5 people/km2), which suggests that LP can have deleterious effects through spillover effects due to poorly integrated buffer zones and LPs’ planning hierarchy. Therefore, evidence from our results and international research suggests that a lack of integration between both spatial policies should be further addressed, especially at local case studies within regional scopes. We discuss on how the fragmentation between these spatial policies can be further assessed using allocation and attribution frameworks, concluding on integrated recommendations to Mexican coastal authorities. Our results and conclusions can be useful to other countries with similar coastal characteristics.
•The interaction between protected areas (PA) and land planning (LP) on the policyscape of costal zones has not been addressed.•Land cover and population density are proxies to evaluate if the interaction between PA and LP is complementary or inhibitory.•In the Mexican coastal zone, PA and LP have complementary interactions, promoting the preservation of natural cover.
Superabsorbents starches (SASs) were synthesized and characterized starting from native corn starch, bitter cassava and sweet cassava by graft copolymerization with itaconic acid. Additionally, their ...swelling behavior was studied both in water and in buffer solutions with different pHs and saline solutions. Their applicability was tested as environmentally friendly fertilizers in the absorption and release of urea, potassium nitrate and ammonium nitrate at different concentrations of fertilizers. The values of swelling at the equilibrium (H∞) in water and different media of the graft copolymers demonstrated their superabsorbent capacity, polyelectrolyte behavior, and smart response to environmental stimuli. The percentage of fertilizer absorbed and released from the SASs was a function of the initial concentration of the fertilizer in the medium. The loading and release of SASs were depended on the initial concentration of the fertilizer in the medium as well as the nature, structure, and morphology of the starch used.
Herein, hydrogels based on starch from corn, sweet cassava and bitter cassava were prepared by a straightforward approach. The hydrogels were obtained by an oxidation process using the redox system ...KMnO4/NaHSO3 which leads to the formation of carbonyl and carboxyl groups with minimum polymer hydrolysis. The resulting oxidized samples as well as the native starches were extensively characterized by scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and wide angle X-ray scattering, among others. High gel fraction values and low degree of crystallinity were obtained in all the cases, which values vary slightly depending on the botanical source. High swelling capacity was observed for all the samples, which behave as hydrogels. The influence of the ionic strength and pH in the swelling capacity of the oxidized starches was also studied. The samples exhibit an anti-polyelectrolyte behavior and the water uptake increases at basic pH as the carboxylic groups become ionized. The hydrogels were also loaded with urea, potassium nitrate and ammonium sulfate as model fertilizers and their potential for controlled release was investigated.
The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant has increased infectivity and immune escape compared with previous variants, and caused the surge of massive COVID-19 waves globally. Despite a vast majority (~90%) of ...the population of Santa Fe city, Argentina had been vaccinated and/or had been infected by SARS-CoV-2 when Omicron emerged, the epidemic wave that followed its arrival was by far the largest one experienced in the city. A serosurvey conducted prior to the arrival of Omicron allowed to assess the acquired humoral defences preceding the wave and to conduct a longitudinal study to provide individual-level real-world data linking antibody levels and protection against COVID-19 during the wave. A very large proportion of 1455 sampled individuals had immunological memory against COVID-19 at the arrival of Omicron (almost 90%), and about half (48.9%) had high anti-spike immunoglobulin G levels (>200 UI/ml). However, the antibody titres varied greatly among the participants, and such variability depended mainly on the vaccine platform received, on having had COVID-19 previously and on the number of days elapsed since last antigen exposure (vaccine shot or natural infection). A follow-up of 514 participants provided real-world evidence of antibody-mediated protection against COVID-19 during a period of high risk of exposure to an immune-escaping highly transmissible variant. Pre-wave antibody titres were strongly negatively associated with COVID-19 incidence and severity of symptoms during the wave. Also, receiving a vaccine shot during the follow-up period reduced the COVID-19 risk drastically (15-fold). These results highlight the importance of maintaining high defences through vaccination at times of high risk of exposure to immune-escaping variants.
From Negative to Positive Carbon Pricing in Mexico Muñoz-Piña, Carlos; Montes de Oca Leon, Mariza; Rivera-Planter, Marisol
Economics of energy & environmental policy,
09/2022, Letnik:
11, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Over the course of a decade, Mexico transitioned from a peak of 1.8% of GDP given as fuel subsidies in 2008 to generating positive fuel tax revenues equivalent to 1.6% of its GDP in 2018. This paper ...analyzes Mexico's carbon pricing experience: the mechanisms that made fossil fuel subsidies such a large burden on public finances, the strategies followed in its five-year phase-out, and the institutional changes that enabled crossing into positive carbon taxation, both explicit and implicit. We analyze the effect of three carbon pricing instruments: 1) the subsidy phase-out, 2) the explicit carbon taxation, and 3) the implicit carbon pricing in excise fuel taxation. We present scenarios to assess the contribution of each policy to Mexico's voluntary commitments under the Paris Agreement. The subsidy phase-out and carbon taxes phase-in significantly contributed to Mexico's carbon emissions reductions. Importantly, we show that excise taxes applied to fossil fuels accrued the largest emissions reductions across all carbon pricing mechanisms due to their magnitude. We present evidence of decoupling between fuel (gasoline and diesel) consumption and economic growth. Our findings support the emerging view that carbon pricing through fiscal policy, in Mexico and elsewhere, shouldn't be restricted to explicit carbon pricing in the form of ETS or carbon taxes. Instead, it should be understood and calculated as the sum of excise taxes net of subsidies, carbon taxes and other forms of carbon pricing, subtracting any fiscal crediting or stimuli present. Keywords: Climate Policy, Environmental Taxes and Subsidies, Externalities, Carbon Tax, Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Mexico
Vaquita marina, a small species of porpoise endemic to the Northern Gulf of California in Mexico, is the world's most endangered cetacean species. With the purpose of preserving vaquita, the Mexican ...government launched PACE-Vaquita in 2008. This voluntary program offers an innovative schedule of compensations: as in a payment-for-conservation program, PACE-Vaquita compensates for temporary reductions in fishing effort; as in a program to accelerate technology adoption, PACE-Vaquita compensates for switching to vaquita-safe fishing methods; and as in a buyback program, PACE-Vaquita compensates fishermen for a permanent exit from fisheries. This paper seeks the factors explaining fishermen's participation in PACE-Vaquita during its first year of operation. Analysis is carried out through a multinomial logit specification on a data set collected one week after the enrollment deadline. This paper shows that fishermen with skills in alternative economic activities more likely quit fishing, and fishermen with relatively less productive vessels more likely switched to vaquita-safe fishing methods. Discussion of public policy implications is provided.
► Enrollment in PACE-Vaquita is modelled with a multinomial logit specification. ► Likelihood of buy-out increases with skills in non-fishing activities. ► Likelihood of switch-out decreases with profits. ► Under current rules, buy-out is not an option to prevent vaquita's extinction. ► Increase in compensation for buy-out may increase participation in buy-out.
In this article, the authors turn to Mexico's recent experience with recrafting property rights over its extensive common property resources (CPRs) as a unique opportunity to analyze in great detail, ...both qualitatively and quantitatively, the determinants of the endogenous evolution of land rights. They analyze the endogenous process of division and incorporation of CPRs resulting from these land reform processes, specifically identifying the factors explaining community decision over changes in property rights and following the implications of endogenous changes in property rights over individual access to land how they affect poverty and inequality.
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