Good practice

Ecuador Socio Bosque Conservation Programme

Ecuador · Quito · See the Ecuador profile

Ecuador's national PES since 2008 pays landowners and indigenous communities US$30–60/ha/yr to conserve 1.6M+ ha of native forest and páramo, cutting annual deforestation from 77,000 to 44,000 ha and benefiting 175,000 people.

US$30-60 /ha/yr

Payment rate

1.6M+ ha

Native forest and paramo conserved

77,000 to 44,000 ha

Annual deforestation

175,000

People benefiting

Details

Maturity: Established
Promoter: Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAAE)
Period: 2008-present
Keywords: Forest, carbon, biodiversity, watershed

Context

Ecuador's national Socio Bosque programme has, since 2008, paid landowners and indigenous communities US$30-60/ha/yr to conserve native forest and paramo.

Results

It conserves more than 1.6M ha, cut annual deforestation from 77,000 to 44,000 ha and benefits 175,000 people.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

C-NAPSE web research — accessed 2026-06-20
Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition (MAAE) — accessed 2026-06-20
UNDP: Ecuador receives USD 18.5M for deforestation reduction — accessed 2026-06-20
Cambridge study: Forest conservation incentives and deforestation in Ecuador — accessed 2026-06-20

Quality score: 60/100

How is this calculated?

Evidence: Observational / pre–post

Top 16% in this catalogue (335 scored practices)

Scores cluster high, so position within the catalogue is often more telling than the number alone.

Evaluation

Evaluated by C-NAPSE

Score profile — the dimensions behind the score — how it's computed

Carbon — sequestration / storage, evidenced2/3

Deforestation fell from 77,000 to 44,000 ha/yr 2008–2016 per UNDP data, implying substantial avoided emissions, but the programme is not independently MRV'd to a certified tCO2e figure.

Biodiversity — conservation / improvement, evidenced2/3

Protects Chocó cloud forest, Amazon and páramo — Ecuador's most biodiverse ecosystems — documented by UNDP and Conservation International, but species-level monitoring data are not published.

Water & soil — retention, infiltration, erosion control2/3

Andean watershed headwater protection is an explicit programme co-benefit cited by UNDP and MAAE, but quantified hydrological outputs have not been independently measured.

Fire resilience — risk reduction, evidenced1/3

Maintained canopy cover reduces ignition risk in formerly at-risk areas, but fire-risk reduction is not a primary objective or monitored outcome of Socio Bosque.

Governance, certification & transferability2/3

20-year contracts under national legislation, administered by MAAE with satellite monitoring; Ecuador received GCF payment for verified deforestation results, but no independent carbon registry exists.

Cite this

Evidoria. Ecuador Socio Bosque Conservation Programme. Persistent ID: 32d3037c-8941-4ecd-bc35-c7b8ec9179e7.

Export as decision brief (PDF)

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