i An update to this article is included at the end

Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Arid Environments

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaridenv

Keeping people in the loop: Socioeconomic valuation of dry forest

ecosystem services in the Colombian Caribbean region
David Pérez-Sánchez a, Marelis Montes a, César Cardona-Almeida a, Luis Alberto Vargas-Marín b,
Tatiana Enríquez-Acevedo c, Andres Suarez a, *
a
Department of Civil and Environmental, Universidad De La Costa, Cl. 58#55-66, Barranquilla, Atlántico, 080002, Colombia
b
Research Center in Environment and Development (CIMAD), Universidad de Manizales, Cra. 9a #19-03, Manizales, Caldas, 170003, Colombia
c
Corporación Autónoma Regional de Caldas -CORPOCALDAS -GIRNMAC, Cl. 21 No. 23-22 Ed. Atlas, Manizales, Caldas, 170006, Colombia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Tropical dry forests (TDF) are one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world, especially in Colombia. One
Existence value way to promote TDF conservation is by upholding the valuation of the ecosystem services they provide.
Instrumental values Therefore, in order to deepen the understanding regarding the conservation of TDF from the perspective of local
Payment for ecosystem services
communities, we sampled two populations for our analysis: the first one consisted of people living inside a TDF
Protected area
protected area, while the second one was made up of urban inhabitants living near the TDF. Through a
Willingness to participate
contingent valuation study, we found that 71% of urban inhabitants were willing to pay 12,119 USD/year to the
protected area’s inhabitants to implement conservation strategies and also that 100% of the protected area’s
dwellers were willing to participate of the strategy. Hence, we proposed a payment for ecosystem services
scheme. Lastly, we observed that inhabitants’ high participation rates for the proposed strategy related to the
high importance given to TDF-provided ecosystem services.

1. Introduction
Tropical dry forest (TDF) conservation is a high priority due to their
many valuable species, and because of their rapid rate of degradation
(Fajardo et al., 2013). It is well known that the TDF is among the most
threatened tropical ecosystems worldwide (MacFarlane et al., 2015),
because of its high deforestation rates, and its limited distribution
(Espírito-Santo et al., 2009). The reason for this degradation is because
humans prefer TDFs for use in their activities given their suitable climate
for farming, the slow growth of vegetation, and the relatively small
stature and open structure of the forest (Schmerbeck and Fiener, 2015).
According to Miles et al. (2006), it is estimated that 1,048,700 km2 of
TDF remains and more than half of the forest area (54.2%) is mainly in
South America. Tropical dry forest in South America is in Venezuela,
Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, and Brazil, with the highest contin­
uous length in the last two countries (Portillo-Quintero and
Sánchez-Azofeifa, 2010). In the Colombian context, TDF degradation is
remarkable. From the original 9 million hectares, currently about 8%
remain (García et al., 2014: pp. 243); it is noteworthy that about 717,
000 Ha of TDF in Colombia, just 46.4% corresponds to the natural forest
(García et al., 2014).
Anthropic activities such as livestock, agriculture, tourism, and even
hydroelectrical and mining projects are the main drivers of TDF degra­
dation and have led to aridization, desertification and loss of fauna and
flora (Montes, 2014; Vargas, 2014;Ulloa-Delgado., 2016). Despite this
vulnerability of the Colombian TDF, only about 5% of more than 700,
000 Ha are under a national protection scheme (García et al., 2014).
Therefore, anthropic dynamics pose several challenges related to TDF
conservation in Colombia.
The representativeness of today’s TDF in the Colombian National
Protected Areas System is only 5%, with the contribution of the pro­
tected areas of the National order being about, 2.2% and, 2.8% for local
and civil social reserves respectively (García et al., 2014). However,
given the dimension of the Colombian National Parks System, the
contribution of the dry forest is only 0.12%, while the contribution for
regional-type protected areas is 0.88%; these data attest that the TDF is
neglected in the National System.
Forests are ecosystems that provide society with multiple functions

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: dperez35@ex.cuc.edu.co (D. Pérez-Sánchez), marelismontes1@hotmail.com (M. Montes), ccardona5@cuc.edu.co (C. Cardona-Almeida),
lvargas@umanizales.edu.co (L.A. Vargas-Marín), tatianaenriquez@corpocaldas.gov.co (T. Enríquez-Acevedo), asuarez24@cuc.edu.co (A. Suarez).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104446
Received 31 August 2020; Received in revised form 30 November 2020; Accepted 15 January 2021
Available online 3 February 2021
0140-1963/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D. Pérez-Sánchez et al.
and benefits such as grazing, timber, and non-timber products, land
stabilization, carbon sequestration, shed and shelter, pollination and
outdoor recreation (Ricketts et al., 2004; Metzger et al., 2006; Al-Assaf,
2015). However, large-scale commercial agriculture, local subsistence
agriculture, infrastructure development, and mining cause deforestation
in the tropics and subtropics. Besides, context-dependent land man­
agement practices and pressures have led to forest loss (Zimbres et al.,
2018).
The economic dimension in the valuation of ecosystem services is a
means to achieve conservation objectives but not as an end in itself
(Spangenberg and Setelle, 2010), because limiting the valuation of
ecosystem services to monetary terms could generate insufficient ap­
proaches to the complexity of ecosystem services analysis since the
economic benefits are not the ultimate purpose of the valuation (Liu
et al., 2010).
Assigning monetary values to ecosystem services can be useful pro­
vided that they are not used as the sole decision-making criterion
(Gómez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Pérez, 2011). Therefore the most impor­
tant use of economic valuation is to support decision making, provide
technical support, and information (Laurans et al., 2013) that allows the
construction of economic instruments that complement management
processes and ecosystem services management. Thus, in order to obtain
the economic valuation of ES, TEEB (2010) establishes a staggered
approach to carry out the valuation process: (1) recognizing the value (i.
e., identifying why an ecosystem and its services are valuable); (2)
demonstrating the value (i.e. determining by valuation methods the
value of ecosystems and their services) and (3) capture the value (i.e.
introducing mechanisms to incorporate the values). The aforementioned
approach supports the generation of ecosystem services economic
valuation processes while involving additional dimensions to the
monetization thereof. Recognizing value integrates the social dynamics
of the ecosystem’s conception, which involves existence values and
intrinsic interdependence with cultural processes; demonstrating the
value supports these processes and harnessing it allows to generate
sustainable management processes for ecosystem services.
In this sense, the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme has
been widely used, and particularly several authors have applied the
willingness to pay approach to match the social interests in the context
of the payments for forest ecosystems conservation and economic
valuation (Obeng and Aguilar, 2018; Sgroi et al., 2016; Górriz-Mifsud
et al., 2016; Bernués et al., 2014). On the other hand, some other authors
have identified the landowner’s willingness to participate in the context
of forests PES (Mäntymaa et al., 2018; Ross, 2016; Bartczak et al., 2015),
where they analyze the attitudes and factors influencing participation.
However, little attention has been paid to matching both the willingness
to pay and the willingness to participate tools in a PES scheme for forest
conservation. So, as presented above, these researches did not make
available an integrated analysis for TDF conservation from the
perspective of community involvement considering the TDF protected
area’s in-situ and their ex-situ inhabitants.
Therefore, we provide insights into the willingness to pay for and
participate in TDF conservation in order to propose a closed cycle in the
context of PES in a protected area. We also analyze the forest’s non-use
‘existence values’ in order to promote the TDF conservation (by urban
inhabitants). We have involved the concrete participation of the in­
habitants who live inside the forest (rural inhabitants) in the TDF con­
servation strategy as well, both to improve their socioeconomic
characteristics and to conserve the TDF’s ecological structure to pro­
mote several ecosystem services for the future. Therefore, we aim to
highlight the importance of community participation in the manage­
ment of forests from a protected area in Colombia. To that end, the
following specific objectives are proposed: (1) to identify inhabitants’
socioeconomic characteristics; (2) to identify the willingness to pay
(people outside the forest) for maintaining TDFs and (3) to design a
payment-for-ecosystem-services scheme to integrate the local popula­
tion (living within the forest) into TDF conservation.
2
Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446
2. Methods
2.1. Study area
The Caribbean region has the best remanence of TDF, since in this
region 55% of the total current TDF corresponds to natural forest. The
highest TDF values are in the departments of Atlántico (5.7%), César
(4.9%) and Bolívar (4.1%). The study area is in the municipality of
Usiacurí in the department of Atlántico, located in the Caribbean region.
The territory of the municipality1 is slightly broken with elevations that
do not exceed, 250 m above sea level, and its lands are included within
the warm thermal flat. The municipality has a total extension of 103
km2, of which the extension of the urban area is 0.3 km2, and the
extension of the rural area is 102.7 km2. The altitude of the urban area
(meters above sea level) is 95 m, and the average yearly temperature of
the municipality is, 27.5 ◦ C.
According to the historical and economic development of the mu­
nicipality, its main tradition are the handicrafts made from the palm of
Iraca (Carludovica palmata), which have been a tradition for generations.
The artisan production has given the artisans opportunities to sell their
products. Other economic activities at Usiacurí correspond to agricul­
ture (i.e., corn, yucca, millet, sesame, melon, fruit trees, among others)
and cattle raising.
At Usiacurí, there is a so-called Integrated Management District of
Natural Resources2 area from Luriza (IMD-L). Fig. 1 shows the study
area. IMD-L was created in, 2011 as a protected area, and several ac­
tivities have been carried out to preserve the TDF (CRA, 2015). IMD-L is
an 837.17 Ha TDF reserve, divided into four management areas:
Restoration Area (183.51 Ha), Preservation Area (475.94 Ha), Sustain­
able Use Area (176.11 Ha) and Public Use Area (1.61 Ha) (CRA, 2011).
The primary uses at IMD-L are conservation, protection, and recu­
peration of ecosystems and water resources, whereas the allowed
conditioned uses are environmental education, research, ecotourism,
and recovery of degraded areas. On the other hand, forbidden uses are
mining, building, and other activities against the reserve’s conservation
objectives. However, it is noteworthy that people were living within the
IMD-L before it was declared a protected area (just on the Restoration
Area and in Sustainable Use Area there are reports of about, 20 owners),
and the several restrictions imposed to land uses by the IMD-L has led to
social problems such as loss of productive capacity and underuse of the
land.
In order to identify the interaction between the populations living in
the area, we analyzed the socio-ecological characteristics of the IMD-L.
This approach led us to understand the complex relations between social
and ecological systems in the study area (Fig. 2). The socio-ecological
system in the IMD-L was analyzed by considering four aspects: (1)
identifying the ecological characteristics of the TDF in the protected
area. Through secondary information, we reviewed some climatological
variables and some biodiversity data to highlight the characteristic of
the ecosystem in the IMD-L. Thereafter, (2) we identified the social ac­
tors in the district, and (3) characterized the actors’ positive or negative
role (actions and interventions) in IMD-L (local inhabitants - both in the
district and the municipality- and local institutional and regional ac­
tors). Finally, (4) we identified the ecosystem services provided by the
IMD-L.
1
Information provided by Usiacurí’s web page: http://www.usiacuri-atlanti
co.gov.co.
2
The IMD is a category of conservation that, due to environmental or so­
cioeconomic factors, is delimited within the criteria of sustainable develop­
ment; it is ordered, planned and regulated in the use and management of the
renewable natural resources and the economic activities that are developed
there.
D. Pérez-Sánchez et al.
Fig. 1. Study area.
Fig. 2. Socio-ecological system identification (adapted from Martín-López
et al., 2012).
2.2. Contingent valuation method: willingness to pay/participate
In the present research, we used the contingent valuation method to
identify willingness to pay (WTP) for dry forest conservation. In the
context of the ecosystem services valuation, we analyzed the WTP for
maintaining the ecosystem’s structure (i.e., the conditions needed to
produce a constant flux of ecosystem services) rather than final
ecosystem services. We based this approach in the ecosystem services
cascade proposed by Haines-Young and Potschin (2018) and designed a
survey to find the payment amount from the inhabitants in the munic­
ipality of Usiacuri, and the willingness to participate in conservation
activities by IMD-L dwellers in the context of a payment for ecosystem
services strategy. To that end, we sampled two populations: on the one
hand, n = 107 from Usiacurí’s urban zone (simple random sampling; 9%
error, and 95% confidence); and on the other hand, n = 23 people from
IMD-L (snowball sampling).
3
Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446
We proposed two questionnaires: the first one related to the payment
for a non-use value (n = 107). The questionnaire’s structure was as
follows: (a) a context related to the ecosystem in the IMD-L; (b) The
Municipality’s inhabitant’s socioeconomic information; and (c) eco­
nomic valuation of the ecosystem’s maintenance with a willingness-to-
pay question related to the ‘existence value’ of the TDF, with specifi­
cations as to the payment range, and the maximum amount to pay
(Table 1). The question asked was: Would you be willing to pay to
maintain the ecosystem services from IMD-L dry forest? We asked about
monthly payments in several categories in order to encompass the wide
spectrum of WTP amounts: we considered a low range of values and high
values. The categories we proposed were <1.74 US$/month,3 1.74 to
3.48 US$/month; 3.48 to 6.9 US$/month; 7 to 17 US$/month; 18 to 34
US$/month; 35 to 174 US$/month and >174 US$/month. We projected
these values over the short term (one year) and the long term (five years)
to analyze the availability of monetary flux for the design of a payment
for ecosystem services scheme. We chose five years according to decrees
1007/2018 and 953/2013, wherein the Colombian government regu­
lated the PES schemes in this lapse of time.
On the other hand, the willingness to participate questionnaire (n =
23) was as follows (Appendix 1): (a) socioeconomic information, (b)
ecosystem services context, (c) and willingness to participate in the
strategy. Regarding this questionnaire, the socioeconomic context
involved variables such as age, employment, income, ecosystems uses,
quality perceptions, and chronic environmental problems from a given
list. We proposed a list of Ecosystem services to IMD-L dwellers to
identify them, so that the respondents ranked the ecosystem services
according to the importance level (low, medium, high).
The willingness-to-participate question proposed the following sce­
nario: If the inhabitants of Usiacurí were willing to pay for you to
develop the following activities: (i) Surveillance to report negative ac­
tions; (ii) Participate in waste cleaning and tree planting campaigns and
3
US$ to $ 2866 COP. May 2018.
D. Pérez-Sánchez et al. Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446

Table 1
Variables used in Usiacurí’s survey.
Variable Description Statistics

Gender Dichotomic variable: (male), (female) Descriptive

Age Categorical variable: (18–25), (26–35), (36–50), (>50)
Educational level Categorical variable: (low), (school), (medium), (high), (none)
Current occupation Categorical variable: (employee), (other), (unemployed)
Monthly incomes Categorical variable: (<1MCLW) *, (1-2MCLW), (3–4 MCLW), (>4MCLW)
Years living in the zone Open-ended question (years)
Knowledge about IMD Dichotomic variable: (yes), (no)
Visit the IMD Dichotomic variable: (yes), (no)
If the IMD is important to respondents Dichotomic variable: (yes), (no)
The motivation for visiting IMD Categorical variable (family), (job), (recreation)
Willingness to visit again IMD Dichotomic variable: (yes), (no)
Maintaining the ES for future Categorical variable (no interested), (a little interested), (indifferent), (interested), (very interested) Mann-Whitney U test
WPT scenario Dichotomic variable: (yes), (no) Logistic regression

(iii) Attend training workshops on environmental issues, would you be
willing to participate in performing these activities for a pay? We
highlighted working conditions and involvement as follows: The
participation would be for workdays - considering the respondent’s
actual time availability - and the payment of the day would correspond
to around 8.72 US$/day (value of one working day according to the
minimum legal wage in Colombia). The payment would be in a monthly
basis and the respondents would have to report how they developed
each of the activities. Finally, with these two scenarios in mind, we
projected a payment for ecosystem services scheme.
2.3. Definition of payment for ecosystem services
We projected the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme
considering both willingness to pay by urban residents and the will­
ingness to participate by IMD-L inhabitants. We based the PES scheme
on Wunder (2015) definition, where Payment for Ecosystem Services is a
voluntary transaction between users of ecosystem services and pro­
viders, which are conditioned under rules on ecosystem management to
generate positive environmental externalities. In this case, we proposed
the interaction between WTP and willingness to participate by making a
direct link between these two analyses and outcomes. We based our
proposed PES scheme through a five-year projected payment in order to
ensure the financial flux to maintain the strategy and to comply with the
Colombian legal framework.
2.4. Data analysis
the Guájaro’s reservoir, as well as the massive amount of diversity of
species of flora and fauna that inhabit this territory. As for the social
component, we could establish that the stakeholders who influence this
system are IMD-L inhabitants, Usiacurí’s population, regional and local
authorities, the ecotourism association, the tourists, communal boards,
police inspection.
Social stakeholders such as IMD-L inhabitants, institutions, and
external visitors play an essential role in maintaining or depleting
ecosystem services. According to the questionnaire, the most common
environmental problem at the district is related to inadequate solid
waste management (60%), messy tourism (30%), logging (26%), and
forest burning (13%). These problems are the results of harmful social
interventions (Table 3) when people benefit from the TDF in the pro­
tected area.
It is noteworthy that some IMD-L inhabitants have property rights
over different pieces of land: some owners have small plots, whereas
others have an interest in using these plots for conservation activities,
while there also are owners interested in selling their plots. The above is
very important to understand the IMD-L dwellers’ willingness and
availability to manage the ecosystem. On the other hand, a local insti­
tution such as Usiacurí’s and regional environmental authorities –CRA-
oversee IMD-L in order to promote environmental management in the
Table 2
Socioeconomic characteristics of the two sampled population.
Variable Usiacurí IMD-Luriza
Frequency (%) Frequency (%)

We gathered the data through a questionnaire carried out during Gender

July 2016. We applied descriptive statistics to know the characteristics Female 52 49% 11 48%
Male 55 51% 12 52%
of the respondents. Moreover, we applied the Mann-Whitney U test (p <
Age (years)
0.05) in order to identify the association of different variables to the 18–25 18 17% 6 26,09%
levels given to the variable ‘Maintaining ES for the future.’ We per­ 26–35 22 21% 3 13,04%
formed this analysis as a proxy to the respondent’s awareness of the 36–50 27 25% 6 26,09%
IMD-L importance for the future generations. We also performed a Logit >50 40 37% 8 34,78%
Current occupation
Regression whit marginal effects (p < 0.05) to identify factors influ­ Employee 20 19% 1 4%
encing the willingness to pay. We used this analysis to explain how in­ Other 46 51% 6 26%
dependent socioeconomic variables predict the respondents’ answers to Unemployed 33 30% 16 70%
yes/no questions (dichotomous outcome) related to willingness to pay. Educational level
Low 30 28% 9 39,13%
We used the software STATA 14®.
School 54 50% 6 26,09%
Medium 13 12% 1 4,35%
3. Results High 5 5% 0 0%
None 5 5% 7 30,43%
3.1. The socio-ecological system in IMD-L Monthly income
<1 MLCWa 81 76% 23 100%
1-2 MLCW 25 23% 0 0%
By delimiting the socio-ecological system in IMD-L, we identified the 3-4 MLCW 1 1% 0 0%
ecological and social components and the interrelations between them Years living in the zone
(Table, 2, Table 3). The ecological component identified within the IMD- <30 37 35% 14 60,87%
70 65% 9 39,13%
L was the tropical dry forest ecosystem, the micro-watershed of river >30

Luriza, which crosses the entire area of the reserve and then flows into a
Minimum Legal Colombian Wage.

4
D. Pérez-Sánchez et al. Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446

Table 3 quality regulation (95%), conservation of biodiversity (91%) and

Ecological Characteristics in IMD-L. (+) = Positive interventions; (− ) = negative tourism (87%), were the most common perceived services at IMD-L; the
interventions. less perceived ecosystem beneficial function was pest control (26%),
Ecological Units Social Actors Type of Interventions/ maybe because of the poor agricultural activities developed in there.
Variables interactions Finally, we asked the respondents if they were interested in preserving
Climate Warm IMD-L (+) Local awareness and the ecosystem services for future generations, to which 95.65%
semi-arid inhabitants traditional knowledge responded positively, whereas 4.35% said they did not feel any interest
(− ) Solid waste generation, in it. Moreover, respondents identified most ecosystem services with
logging, charcoal
high importance, mainly regulating services (52).
Relative 60–87% Tourist (+) Incomes in Usiacurí
humidity (− ) Solid waste generation,
messy tourism
Temperature 28 ◦ C Local and (+) Funding for conservation 3.2. Willingness to pay for/participate in dry forest ecosystem services
regional (− ) Lack of control and
authorities insufficient opportunities for
We asked the population of the municipality of Usiacurí (n = 107) if
sustainable management
Annual average 800 mm Ecotourism (+) Promoting the area and they knew about the existence of the IMD-L, and if they had ever gone to
rainfall NGO attracting tourists visit that area. The results show that 94% have knowledge about it, and
(− ) Lack of control and 66% have visited this area. The most common activities carried out
benefit distributions for locals when visiting IDM-L were family motivation (25%), tourism (23%), and
Floristic 141 Sp. Usiacurís (+) Promoting the area,
because of work reasons (14%); 38% did not answer. Furthermore, 90%
richness 19 Sp. inhabitants incomes generation to IMD-L
Amphibian 44 Sp. (− ) Logging, poaching, of the sampled people assigned high importance to IMD-L, and 93%
Fauna 140 Sp. charcoal production showed interest in maintaining their ecosystem services to the future.
Reptiles 43 Sp. Regarding the maintenance of ES for the future, we found a significant
Birds
association with variables such as ‘Whether the IMD is important to
Mammals
respondents’ (p = 0,0046); ‘Knowledge about IMD’ (p = 0,03); ‘Visiting
CRA & Ecoforest (1996); Alcaldía municipal de Usiacurí (2000); Fundación ESC the IMD’ (p = 0,04), and ‘Willingness to visit IMD again’ (p = 0,01).
(2011). On the other hand, we identified the Willingness to pay (WTP) for a
tropical dry forest ecosystem located in IMD-L. We asked about the WTP
through a hypothetical scenario, where IMD-L inhabitants conduct
Table 4
conservation activities. The results showed that 71% (n = 77) had a
Ecosystem Services identified by IMD-L inhabitants.
positive WTP (+), while the remaining 23% (n = , 22) had a negative
Ecosystem Ecosystem Frequency (%) Given importance WTP (− ). The most recurrent reason to say No was lack of money to
Functions/ Services (frequency)
process (final)
make the payment (70%), and local authorities should make the in­
High Medium Low vestment in conservation activities (14%). We noticed that the people in
Provision the sample had different levels in their WTP since 42% were willing to
Services pay less than 1.74 US$/month, 53% were willing to pay between 1.74
Water supply 23 100% 15 8 0
and 3.48 US$/month, and only 5% more than 3.48 US$/month. The
Food supply 18 78% 12 6 0
Fiber, 17 74% 15 1 1
mean value to pay was, 2.02 US$/month, while the minimum value to
timber, and pay was 0.87 US$/month and the maximum 5.23 US$/month.
wood supply With a logit regression (Table 5), we determined which of the vari­
42 15 1 ables analyzed within the inhabitants of Usiacurí influenced positive
Regulating
WTP (+). The main variables that influenced the WTP response were
Services
Air quality 22 95% 20 1 1 Years living in the zone (coef. = − .0587; p = 0.000); the level of
Biodiversity 21 91% 18 3 0 importance given to IMD-L (coef. 1.797; p = 0.070) and interest in
Soil fertility 17 74% 10 7 1 maintaining ecosystem services for the future (coef. = 1.125; p = 0.001).
Flood 10 43% 4 6 0 The results showed that the time that respondents has been living in the
Control
Pest Control 6 26% 0 4 2
municipality has a negative influence on their willingness to make this
52 21 4 payment. This finding means that the people who have lived there for a
Cultural long time were less likely to pay, while importance assigned to IMD-L
Services and interest in maintaining and preserving ecosystem services from
Tourism 20 87% 13 6 1
IMD-L count as variables that positively contribute to WTP. The logit
Education 17 74% 8 8 1
Spiritual 14 61 11 1 2
wellbeing Table 5
32 15 4 Logit regression with marginal effects for WTP.
WTP Coef. Std. Err. z P>z dx/dy
area. Years_zone -.0587403 .0159637 − 3.68 0.000* -.007
We obtained information regarding the relationships between the Know (yes) 1.517164 1.257584 1.21 0.228
ecosystem and the stakeholders and the IMD-L-activities they perform in Visit again .5344503 .5841199 0.91 0.360
Importance 1.797998 .9939061 1.81 0.070*** .23277
their daily lives (Table 4). Firstly, according to IMD-L inhabitants, 100%
Interest_ES future 1.125813 .3362166 3.35 0.001** .14571
took water from pits and said that water was mostly low quality (60%); , _cons − 4.768999 1.856098 − 2.57 0.010
27% of people develop agricultural activities, 39% of IMD-L dwellers LR chi2(5) 39.44
used timber to perform different activities such as charcoal production Prob > chi2 0.0000
Pseudo R2 0.3106
(29%), and firewood (64%). Within IMD-L, we highlight waste man­
Log likelihood = − 43.764502
agement, messy tourism, and forest cut down. IMD-L inhabitants iden­
tified ecosystem services as follows: Sig. *p < 0.01; p > 0.05; p > 0.10. The model is properly specified according to
From the ecosystem services identified, water supply (100%), air the errors (p > 0.05); Classify 83% of the answers, and according to the Hosmer-
Lemeshow test, the regression adjusts appropriately (p > 0.05).

5
D. Pérez-Sánchez et al.
marginal effects yield that the most years living in the zone, the prob­
ability for a WTP (+) decreased in 7%, while importance increase the
probability in, 23%, and finally the most interest in maintaining ES for
the future, the probability increase 14% for WTP (+).
Regarding the willingness to participate survey we applied to the
population (n = 23) living in the IMD-L, all of them (100%) answered
positively to the proposed scenario. After researchers provided further
and detailed information related to payment conditions, type of activ­
ities needed, payment amount, and evidence of activities done, we stress
that 100% of people would be willing to participate. According to the
participation, we proposed scenarios with different days a month to
work in the strategy as depicted in Table 6:
The results show that most respondents would participate between 6
and 15 days/month (60%), whereas the percentage of people interested
in participating 1–10 days/month is lower (34%). Moreover, the po­
tential financial contributions for the strategy represent about 37,572
US$ for five years.
3.3. Proposed payment scheme for ecosystem services
Taking as a reference the mean WTP value (2.02 US$/month), the
projection for the whole urban population (8450 urban inhabitants)
would rise to 17,069 US$/year. However, we proportionally disregarded
the negative responses in the WTP (29%), which resulted in 12,119
USD/year and 60,595 USD in five years. In this vein, the yearly sum
required of IMD-L’s inhabitants would be 7514.4 USD/year, only 12% of
the WTP’s potential economic influx, where 88% of the funds could be
diverted to different social and ecological improvements, and PES
management and operation.
We proposed the payment for ecosystem services scheme to boost
sustainability in IMD-L through social participation. At the beginning of
the strategy, PES aims to address the processes of ecosystem services
degradation in IMD-L, for ecosystem services will tend to decline if the
strategy is not implemented. This first stage involves the views, per­
ceptions, and capacities of the different stakeholders from Usiacurí and
the department of Atlántico to ensure active participation. At this stage,
it is necessary to identify the current state of the ecosystem through an
initial monitoring process. As is to be expected, once the economic
incentive is ongoing, the beneficiary has high levels of dependence on
the PES incentives due to the change in productive activities related to
the use of the ecosystems (e.g., wood for charcoal production to sale).
Initially, the incentive should act as ‘risk capital’ to support decision
making regarding the shift and transformation of productive activities
towards more sustainable ones, for which dependence on the PES will
decrease as these new activities support the income of IMD-L
inhabitants.
The importance of monitoring is high because it guarantees that the
program is generating benefits in both the conservation of ecosystems,
as well as the social welfare of the beneficiaries. Thus, PES must achieve
improvements in socioeconomic and TDF conditions. Later on, comes
the end of the strategy, which represents the end of receiving the
incentive for conservation and a third monitoring stage appears. At this
moment occurs the verification of the additionality (social and ecolog­
ical) without payment. Finally, it is essential to accompany the PES
Table 6
Participation in a WTP scenario.
Days working at Frequency (%) US US US$/5
strategy/month $/montha $/year year
1–5 3 14% 30,3 363.6 1818
6–10 7 30% 141.4 1696.8 8484
11–15 7 30% 212.1 2545.2 1,2,726
16–20 6 26% 242.4 2908.8 14,544
23 100% 626.2 7514.4 37,572
a
Estimation with the higher values in the participation (i.e., five days, ten
days, 15 days 20 days).
6
Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446
strategy with the promotion of an alternative activity that ensures the
long-term sustainability of the beneficiaries as well as the conservation
of the ecosystems.
4. Discussion
4.1. Tropical dry forest and the context of socio-ecological systems
TDF conservation is a priority because of their vulnerability and high
importance in providing ecosystem services. However, to succeed in the
conservation of TDF, it is necessary to understand the changing re­
lationships between society and the ecosystems (Whaley et al., 2010).
Thus, the understanding of the socio-ecological complexity in the IMD-L
transcends the approaches that disintegrate social processes with the
dynamics of natural systems, because societies and nature interact
reciprocally and form complex feedback loops (Enríquez-Acevedo et al.,
2020; Liu et al., 2010). This conception allows us to understand that
social and natural systems are strongly related due to the historical
co-evolution between them (Boakye-Danquah et al., 2018). In this sense,
ecological conditions in the IMD-L are the source to provide wellbeing to
the populations IMD-L and Usiacuri through ecosystem services,
particularly water, timber and food supply (Table 4); therefore, there
exists a strong relationship between social stakeholders and IMD-L.
Moreover, the different stakeholders in the socio-ecological system
interact in different ways and produce different interventions (Table 3),
which are critical to understand and manage.
The inclusion of the community in forest management has widely
been considered to sustain protected areas (Dolisca et al., 2006; Wali
et al., 2017). Several studies have discussed the need to involve local
communities in forest protection areas and have concluded that com­
munity access to resources has acted as safety nets and shock mitigators
in times of upheavals (Mutekwa and Gambiza, 2017), and to gain ben­
efits (Ward et al., 2018). Therefore, it is essential to promote TDF con­
servation strategies (c.f. Alexiades et al., 2012; Burivalova et al., 2017),
in such way that local stakeholders’ participation in the forest man­
agement could be facilitated (Tekalign et al., 2018), and ecosystem
services provision and social conditions could be enhanced. Hence,
effective, sustainable forest use depends on local resource users having
the appropriate skills and tools to manage the forests themselves
(Alexiades et al., 2012). The above shows the potential for a figure such
as the IMD-L since the area facilitates the inclusion of people and sus­
tainable activities (see Study area description) in its management.
4.2. Ecosystem services provided by the IMD-L
As we found, IMD-L inhabitants identified and rated a series of
ecosystem services provided by the IMD-L. The rating process (Table 4)
is a proxy to understand the social values of the ecosystem services
(Mastrangelo, 2018) because, as stated by Scholte et al. (2015), these
kinds of valuation are the importance people attribute to the ecosystem
services as individuals or as a group. Therefore, in line with previous
studies, regulating services has a high valuation over the provisioning or
cultural ecosystem services (c.f. Zoderer et al., 2016). In connection to
the valuation, we point out that IMD-L inhabitants gave high importance
to the services provided by the TDF as a result of their assumption of the
ecosystem as a provider of instrumental values for them (e.g., water,
food, timber, tourism). However, high importance was related to the
generation of intrinsic values too (e.g., biodiversity) or bequest reasons
(95.65% interested in preserve the ecosystem services for future gen­
erations). Therefore, we identified that regarding the inhabitants’
valuation of the ecosystem services provided by the TDF, there is conflict
in valuation languages (Arias-Arévalo et al., 2018), the reason why the
challenge is to integrate the pluralism in the ecosystem services
assessment.
D. Pérez-Sánchez et al.
4.3. Payment for ecosystem services and community participation
The payment scheme and participation have a strong basis in peo­
ple’s willingness to participate in the strategy. We analyzed the partic­
ipation from the form of payment amounts by municipality and from
availability of IMD-L inhabitants to dedicate time to work in conserva­
tion and environmental improvement strategies inside IMD-L (trans­
action). In this sense, the PES scheme proposed is not mandatory or
regulated by local or national authorities; instead, it is a process that
could integrate free and voluntary participation of different stakeholders
in the municipality to conserve dry forest ecosystem services. We
selected the study area because of the importance of the dry forest
ecosystem in the region. IMD-L provides multiple ecosystem services to
the local population, for which we identified people who live in Usia­
curí’s urban zone as ecosystem services users (more than 8000 in­
habitants). Here, the providers of ecosystem services are IMD-L
inhabitants because some of them have property rights and influence
over the ecosystem in the area. Some owners have plots between 0.01 Ha
and 52.71 Ha, and those with a larger extension of land are willing to sell
their plots because they cannot develop productive activities. Moreover,
IMD-L dwellers have several socio-economic characteristics that make
them vulnerable (see Table 2). Finally, the Payment to IMD-L in­
habitants who participate in the scheme must meet several requisites
(see the method section), which are the guarantee for payers. In this
sense, as we pointed out in the participation scenario, IMD-L inhabitants
will receive payments if they meet numerous conditions regarding
conservation, monitoring and reporting activities.
Paying for ecosystem services is a complex concept (Martin-Ortega
et al., 2018) and a contested tool for ecosystem conservation (Muradian
et al., 2013). Many PES-schemes found in the literature discuss the value
of the instrument: some discuss their ineffectiveness (Calvo-Alvarado
et al., 2009), while others highlight their positive impacts (Alix-Garcia
et al., 2018; Andersson et al., 2018). Several studies focus on the ways of
ensuring the payment, building financial support or analyzing social or
ecological benefits while the scheme lasts (Newton et al., 2012; Mutoko
et al., 2015; Hayes and Murtinho, 2018; Rodríguez-Ortega et al., 2018;
Chu et al., 2019); however, this study proposes a general ex-ante strat­
egy to promote a PES scheme, considering the time of the payment and a
way to maintain conservation practices without payment after the end of
the strategy.
One problem related to the economic valuation of ecosystem services
is the existence of a gap between theory and practice (Marre et al.,
2016). In this sense, we provided a practical application of the outputs
related to the economic valuation of the TDF ecosystem services in a
specific context, so that the people who live in the IMD-L were willing to
participate in the strategy under the terms we provided, not only
because the inhabitants need to generate income (i.e., fewer days
worked means less monthly payment), but also because they have
bestowed high importance to the ecosystem services in the area. In this
sense, our results are valuable since the proposed payment seeks to
contribute to the quality of life of the IMD-L inhabitants, and the
improvement of TDF in the area as a collateral impact. Thus, the final
purpose of the willingness to participate is a way to improve
socio-ecological conditions (Suarez et al., 2018), beyond highlighting
resource management (Kosoy et al., 2008), financial structures (Ross,
2016; Sarkissian et al., 2017), the spatial dimension of the payments
(Broch et al., 2013), or solely understanding motivations (Nielsen et al.,
2018).
4.4. Implications for conservation
We provide information about social, ecological, and economic
characteristics in a protected tropical dry forest area in Colombia. This
information is topical for further research related to the management of
this endangered ecosystem since our results showed that urban in­
habitants value the TDF for its existence, and people were willing to pay
7
Journal of Arid Environments 188 (2021) 104446
a monthly fee of, 2.02 US$ for the maintenance of ecosystem services at
IMD-L. On the other hand, we recognized the existence of different de­
terminants for positive WTP (i.e., years living in the zone, the level of
importance given to IMD-L and interest in maintaining ecosystem ser­
vices for the future). Furthermore, we observed that the high rates
participation of IMD-L inhabitants in the proposed PES strategy related
to the high importance given to the ecosystem services. The above shows
the high potential of the local community living in the IMD-L to promote
and develop TDF conservation strategies.
Finally, we proposed the PES scheme to fill gaps through the incor­
poration of several aspects. Based on the foregoing, we identified that
the PES must be complemented with effective economic and ecological
assessment processes of the ecosystem services, in order to generate
coherent approaches to the socio-ecological context. Hence, the partic­
ipation of the beneficiaries and stakeholders involved in general must be
ensured around the implementation of the economic instrument. As a
final point, a fundamental element is the generation of monitoring
processes for the impact generated by the strategy to transcend the
initial impulse of the projects. It means that the PES scheme herein
proposed not only focuses on the strategy while it is implemented but
seeks to find a way to guarantee the strategy’s success once it is over.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
We thank the Universidad de la Costa, and the program in Envi­
ronmental Management. Moreover, we thank professors R. Manzolli and
L. Portz for their support.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104446.
Ethical statement
In the research, the authors fully informed the participants in the
research about the aim and scope of the research. Also, the authors asked
for respondents’ consent and the authors assured the privacy rights of
the respondents.
Authors contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material
preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by D. Perez
and M. Montes. The first draft of the manuscript was written by A.
Suarez and all authors commented on previous versions of the manu­
script. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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 Update
Journal of Arid Environments
Volume 191, Issue , August 2021, Page

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104535
 Journal of Arid Environments 191 (2021) 104535

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Arid Environments

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaridenv

Corrigendum to “Keeping people in the loop: Socioeconomic valuation of

dry forest ecosystem services in the Colombian Caribbean region” [J. Arid
Environ. 188 (2021) 104446]
David Pérez-Sánchez a, Marelis Montes a, César Cardona-Almeida a, Luis Alberto Vargas-Marín b,
Tatiana Enríquez-Acevedo c, Andres Suarez a, *
a
Department of Civil and Environmental, Universidad De La Costa, Cl. 58#55-66, Barranquilla, Atlantico, 080002, Colombia
b
Research Center in Environment and Development (CIMAD), Universidad de Manizales, Cra. 9a #19-03, Manizales, Caldas, 170003, Colombia
c
Corporacion Autonoma Regional de Caldas -CORPOCALDAS -GIRNMAC, Cl. 21 No. 23-22 Ed. Atlas, Manizales, Caldas, 170006, Colombia

The authors regret for the miscalculation in the aggregated WTP
value. First paragraph in section 3.3 must be as follows:
Taking as a reference the mean WTP value (2.02 US$/month), the
projection for the whole urban population (8450 urban inhabitants)
would rise to 17,069 US$/month. However, we proportionally dis­
regarded the negative responses in the WTP (29%), which resulted in
12,119 USD/month (145,428 US$/year) and 727,114 US$ USD in five
years. In this vein, the yearly sum required of IMD-L’s inhabitants would
be 7514.4 USD/year, only 5% of the WTP’s potential economic influx,
where 95% of the funds could be diverted to different social and
ecological improvements, and PES management and operation.
Also, the aggregated value reported in the abstract is: 145,428 US
$/year.
The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

DOI of original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104446.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: asuarez24@cuc.edu.co, asagudelo88@gmail.com (A. Suarez).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104535

Available online 11 May 2021

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