Trade and MEAs
Markets for ecosystem services: a potential tool for multilateral environmental agreements
Can markets for ecosystem services help promote sustainable and pro-poor development?
Authors:
A.K. Duraiappah
Publisher:
International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, 2006
This paper discusses markets for ecosystem services (MES), which is an alternative approach for dealing with the way ecosystem services are used. The MES is proposed to have an important role in sustainable use of ecosystem services and in reducing poverty through
- generating financial resources
- diverting funds to environmentally-friendly technologies
- creating incentives for investment
- increasing involvement of the private business sector in environmental management.
The body of the paper looks in greater detail at the aspects of MES, including case studies, from which future work can learn.
The final section of the paper discusses challenges and opportunities; giving the following steps for creating a pro-poor MES using a Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) framework:
- identify bundles of ecosystem services and related MEAs
- determine the total socio-economic value of the current flow of benefits from an ecosystem
- determine the net socio-economic benefits of an intervention that alters ecosystem conditions
- examine how the costs and benefits of an ecosystem (or an intervention) are distributed
- identify potential financing sources for conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services
- identify and design institutional mechanisms to ensure equitable outcomes for MES initiatives.
