Payments for Ecosystem Services
Ecosystems purify our air and water, help to control our climate and provide goods and services that are often impossible to replace. However, many ecosystems are under threat. As the world’s population continues to grow, consumption of food, water, and other materials increases and the ecosystems that provide for these needs are being over-burdened and in some cases destroyed.
The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) - also refered to as Payments for Environmental Services - seeks to create positive economic incentives to change human behaviour in ways that increase or maintain environmental services such as watershed protection, the sequestration of carbon and the provision of habitat for endangered species.
The concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) - also refered to as Payments for Environmental Services - seeks to create positive economic incentives to change human behaviour in ways that increase or maintain environmental services such as watershed protection, the sequestration of carbon and the provision of habitat for endangered species.
- PES: a solution for biodiversity conservation?
- Can biodiversity be conserved through direct payments to landholders to adopt sustainable land-use practices? This paper reviews the literature on payments for environmental services (PES) – where environmental services are defined as the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems – to assess the use of PES in terms of its economic, social and ecological impacts.
