CSF-Brazil is developing a state-level economic incentive policy to maintain environmental services in Amapá State, SECISA (Sistema Estadual de Clima e Incentivos aos Serviços Ambientais do Amapá, State System of Climate and Incentives for Environmental Services in Amapá). Earlier this month, we completed an analysis of incentive systems for environmental services that already exist in other Brazilian states, gathering lessons learned and guidelines for the development of a policy for Amapá. 
 
As part of this initiative, CSF-Brazil held an environmental economics training March 9-12, 2020. The workshop was held at Riomar Hotel in Macapá and attended by 20 members of the state planning department, the state environment department, Embrapa (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation), university professors, federal environmental inspection agencies and indigenous representatives. 
 
The goal of the course was to give participants an understanding of how to use economic tools to make decisions about the importance of environmental services and their environmental economic value in decision making. The training also covered the use of policy and program analysis indicators, the use of cost benefit analysis and potential sources of financing for Amapá’s state strategy.
 
Participants enthusiastically participated in the interactive sessions, such as the public good exercise in which they sought to demonstrate the existing market failures with the overexploitation of goods and services.

The next step of this initiative is to hold meetings with various stakeholders and partners including the government, academic and scientific agencies, the private sector, and civil society including indigenous peoples, farmers, traditional communities and other interested parties in order to develop a proposal for the legal framework necessary for the implementation of SECISA and an action plan for its dissemination. 

This project is being conducted in partnership with BVRio and Ecosecurities as part of a project implemented by Conservation International funded by UNDP.