Jaouad, Mohamed

The last few decades have witnessed the proliferation of collective payment contracts for environmental services (C-PES) to help alleviate problems of deforestation and natural resources degradation in the context of communal land tenure. As C-PES programs are proving to gain the adherence of rural communities in many part of the world, discussions on how C-PES arrangements may support the emergence of collective actions are minimal in scientific literature. In this respect, we refer to the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to analyze the institutional content of one recent C-PES contract in Southern Tunisia that had allowed for the pastoral amelioration of 148 300 ha of tribal grazing lands. We apply first to the institutional grammar tool to unpack new management rules, and refer next to the Institutional Network Analysis approach to reconstruct these rules within action situations of provision, appropriation, and monitoring and sanctioning. Results reveal a purposeful institutional change crafted around Ostrom’s design principles. Of particular manifestation are those principles related to resource system boundaries and local enforcement of provision and appropriation rules. Moreover, our investigation reveals that actors’ interaction was intended to occur within centralized collaborative networks, which may hinder possibilities for social learning and acquirement of new institutions by resource users.