Payment for Environmental Services
IUCN has just issued new guidance to help practitioners assess ecosystem services within important sites for biodiversity and nature conservation. The report reviews nine assessment tools, focusing on their application in Key Biodiversity Areas, natural World Heritage sites and protected areas. It includes a set of “decision trees” to save time on the complex process of selecting the most appropriate tool for one’s specific needs.
Author(s): Neugarten, R., Langhammer, P., Osipova,, E., Bagstad, K., Bhagabati, N., Butchart, S., Dudley, N., Elliot, V., Gerber, L., Gutierrez Arrellano, C., Ivanic, K., Kuttenen, M., Mandle, L., Merriman, J., Mulligan, M., Peh, K., Raudsepp-Hearne, C., Semmens, D., Stolton, S., Willcock, S., Groves, C.
2018
White Paper: Options and Financial Mechanisms for the Financing of Biodiversity Offsets
Increasingly the Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA), the Business and Biodiversity Offset Program (BBOP) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) observe efforts by companies to employ the mitigation hierarchy and attempt to offset their residual impacts. Many of these projects are still in the design phase but more and more companies are moving towards implementation of offset initiatives. Although the number of offset projects under implementation is still relatively modest, lessons drawn from these experiences have highlighted the fragility of certain offset projects stemming from inadequate financing and frailties within their underlying funding structures. The lack of adequate finance is a major risk in achieving the permanence of offset schemes around the world, especially where regulations do not require them and where compliance regimes are lax. This report explores these ideas and potential options to explore when tackling these issues.
Author(s): Francois Bernard, Giles Davies, Matthew McLuckie, & Ray Victurine
February 2018
Revaluing Ecosystems: Pathways for Scaling Up the inclusion of Ecosystem Value in Decision Making
Ecosystems provide essential services to society, from pollination and filtering of pollution to climate and water regulation. These services are often treated as though they have no value, with ecosystems too frequently managed for short-term gain at the expense of broader, longer-term societal benefits. There is an increasing array of tools to evaluate the tradeoffs associated with these developments, as well as a growing body of ecosystem service assessments which highlight the changes in value. Efforts to incorporate ecosystem values in decision making are growing – through partnerships, in government, and in the private sector. This issue brief highlights barriers, opportunities, and pathways to broader consideration of ecosystem services in decision making.
Author(s): Lauretta Burke, Janet Ranganathan, and Robert Winterbottom
April 2015
The Bottom Line: Taking Stock of the Role of Offsets in Corporate Carbon Strategies
Author(s): Allie Goldstein
March 2015
We conducted a systematic review of studies on the impact of payments for environmental services (PES) that set natural forest conservation as the goal on deforestation and poverty in developing countries. The review is motivated by debates over whether the pursuits of conservation and poverty reduction in developing countries tend to conflict or whether they might be complementary. A search for rigorous impact evaluation studies identified eleven quantitative and nine associated qualitative evaluation studies assessing the effects of PES. The methodological rigor of these studies varied widely, meaning that the evidence base for the impact of PES policies is limited in both quantity and quality. Given the evidence available, we find little reason for optimism about the potential for current PES approaches to achieve both conservation and poverty reduction benefits jointly. We call for the production of high quality impact evaluations, using randomisation when possible, to assess whether the apparent incompatibility of conservation and poverty reduction might be overcome through programming innovations.
Author(s): Cyrus Samii, Matthew Lisiecki, Parashar Kulkarni, Laura Paler, Larry Chavis
19 December 2014
Innovations for equity and inclusion in smallholder payments for ecosystem services
This summary report aims to inform future research and practice for IIED, its partners and other PES stakeholders. It is divided into four parts: an introduction to the issues; understanding the challenges and drivers when designing inclusive PES systems; how to shift from a "supply-push" to a "demand-pull" approach to PES; and ways forward for research and practice. During a workshop held in March 2014, practical experiences from projects in Uganda, Mexico, Costa Rica, Indonesia and Bangladesh countries were presented.
Author(s): Ina Porras and Emma Blackmore (IIED)
Tuesday, Jul 1st 2014
This guidebook provides a step-by-step introduction to Targeted Scenario Analysis (TSA), an innovative analytical approach, developed by UNDP, that captures and presents the value of ecosystem services within decision making, to help make the business case for sustainable policy and investment choices.
Author(s): Francisco Alpizar (CATIE) and Andrew Bovarnick (UNDP)
Monday, Nov 25 2013
Payments for environmental services: lessons from the Costa Rican PES programme
This document compiles the key points of the Fair Ideas Conference presentations and provides links to the participating organisations and further materials.
Author(s): Ina Porras
Monday, Mar 4 2013
Changes in the global value of ecosystem services
Author(s): Robert Costanza, Rudolf de Groot, Paul Sutton, Sander van der Ploeg, Sharolyn J. Anderson, Ida Kubiszewski, Stephen Farber, R. Kerry Turner
April 1, 2014