TY - JOUR
T1 - How to sell ecosystem services
T2 - A guide for designing new markets
AU - Banerjee, Simanti
AU - Secchi, Silvia
AU - Fargione, Joseph
AU - Polasky, Stephen
AU - Kraft, Steven
PY - 2013/8
Y1 - 2013/8
N2 - Payments for ecosystem services (PES) can improve environmental quality by aligning the incentives of individual landowners with societal interests in providing valuable ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water quality, flood control, and wildlife habitat. However, for this potential to be realized, many institutional details and technical challenges must be addressed. In this review, we discuss six critical issues for creating effective PES markets: using the appropriate type of market institution, defining suitable spatial and temporal scales for the market, promoting additionality (avoiding payments for services that would have been provided even in the absence of payments) so that payments result in increased services, offering incentives for projects that generate multiple ecosystem services, considering practice-based versus performance-based payments, and eliminating opportunities for strategic behavior aimed at gaming the system. We illustrate these issues with an example of how PES could be applied to floodplain restoration.
AB - Payments for ecosystem services (PES) can improve environmental quality by aligning the incentives of individual landowners with societal interests in providing valuable ecosystem services such as carbon storage, water quality, flood control, and wildlife habitat. However, for this potential to be realized, many institutional details and technical challenges must be addressed. In this review, we discuss six critical issues for creating effective PES markets: using the appropriate type of market institution, defining suitable spatial and temporal scales for the market, promoting additionality (avoiding payments for services that would have been provided even in the absence of payments) so that payments result in increased services, offering incentives for projects that generate multiple ecosystem services, considering practice-based versus performance-based payments, and eliminating opportunities for strategic behavior aimed at gaming the system. We illustrate these issues with an example of how PES could be applied to floodplain restoration.
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U2 - 10.1890/120044
DO - 10.1890/120044
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:84881418679
SN - 1540-9295
VL - 11
SP - 297
EP - 304
JO - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
JF - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
IS - 6
ER -