Ecosystem approach, services payment and comparative analysis of the legal framework of native forests protection in two argentine forest regions

Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the quality of regulations and of a selection of public policies about native forests protection through the application of the "ecosystem approach", and to analyse the functioning and the levels of implementation of the environmental services payment system in the following forest regions: Tucumano-Boliviana and Misionera Jungles. Both of them have high levels of biodiversity in their territories. Also, we will state if provincial regulations complied or not with law 26.331 about minimum environmental guidelines for native forests protection objectives, if these provinces set out tougher requirements (taking into account section 41 of National Constitution), or if they were lighter. This is an exploratory research, where we used the comparative analytic, legal hermeneutics methods and we performed environmental perception surveys. We used a chart as a guide where national law objectives and specific actions were included, in order to contrast them as it was already implemented in previous scientific papers. We can state that in the majority of cases, national law 26.331 exceeds legal requirements of analysed provincial jurisdictions, and that ecosystem approach was already incorporated in some forest public policies considering that it did not have a strong presence in provincial regulations (except in the case of Misiones), and much less in argentine jurisprudence.