Ecosystem Services Approach in the Reservoir Billings Watershed (SP): Application of the Payment for Environmental Services (PES) instrument in the Environmental Protection Macrozone of the Municipality of Santo André (SP).
Payment for Environmental Services (PES) has been used for an environmental management tool in Brazil and other countries a possibility beyond the traditional command and control instruments, considering, in some cases, the principles of “pays user” and “receiver provider”. In Brazil, PES programs bring together four specific categories of Environmental Services: carbon sequestration or storage, biodiversity protection, water resources protection, and scenic landscape conservation. The research is based on the list of Ecosystem Services (ES) generated by the Environmental Protection Macrozone of Santo André (municipality located in the state of Sao Paulo), whose region also includes a part of the Billings Reservoir. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the application of PES an environmental management tool. Therefore, it was necessary to analyze legislation, existing sources of resources, as well as the calculation of priority areas for the application of the instrument. Through the use of mixed methodology, with quantitative and qualitative, the state of the art of PES, ES and Environmental Services were surveyed; Case Studies on PES in water producing areas and the main potentialities and limiting factors for the application of the PES instrument, in addition to recommendations for public policies for Santo André, which implies the creation of a specific law for PES and creation of rural areas in the municipality. In addition, the research conducted in this dissertation identified other possibilities of application of the instrument in the study area.