Conserving Natures? Co-producing Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mongolian Rangelands

Despite well-founded concerns over the proliferation of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, critical geographers have begun to challenge the ‘milieu of apprehension’ associated with PES (Jackson and Palmer, 2014: 122). There is a growing call for more nuanced analyses of ways in which the ecosystem services paradigm and PES may, in particular circumstances, encompass and make legible diverse ways of being in/knowing nature and provide opportunities for local/indigenous actors to advance their own needs and values. Adopting a ‘radical pragmatist’ approach, the author of this article worked with Mongolian herder groups to develop a locally-grounded manifestation of PES, with specific attention to the incorporation of diverse socio-ecological relations, beliefs and values. The article argues that such co-produced iterations of PES, with due attention to tripartite dimensions of environmental justice, can facilitate local stewardship, whilst eschewing enclosure of commons and crowding out of non-market values and motives for conservation, albeit shaped and constrained by diverse manifestations of power.