Creating Markets for Ecosystem Services

Restoration of ecosystem services for environmental markets.

Ecological restoration is an activity that ideally results in the return of an ecosystem to an undisturbed state. Ecosystem services are the benefits humans derive from ecosystems. The two have been joined to support growing environmental markets with the goal of creating restoration-based credits that can be bought and sold. However, the allure of these markets may be overshadowing shortcoming...

Ecosystem services from agriculture: Steps for expanding markets

Toward a Rational Exuberance for Ecosystem Services Markets

tion-oriented management activities; and purchasing development rights, conservation easements, and land in fee simple (e.g., Bengston et al. 2004). Current enthusiasm for ecosystem services markets arises in part from an interest in providing still another way to fund landowner incentives. Through markets, landowners could be compensated for ecosystem services their lands produce with funding ...

The Equity and Legitimacy of Markets for Ecosystem Services

Markets for ecosystem services are being promoted across the developing world, amidst claims that the provision of economic incentives is vital to bring about resource conservation. This article argues that equity and legitimacy are also critical dimensions in the design and implementation of such markets, if social development goals beyond economic gains are to be achieved. The article examine...

Ecosystem Services Go Beyond Money and Markets: Reply to Silvertown.

Silvertown [1] provides an outspoken critique on the concept of ecosystem services (ES), feeding a longstanding debate about how to express and conserve the value of nature for humans [2–4]. The paper raises valid concerns about ES monetization, its failure to ‘capture the multifaceted sense in which people value nature’, and market shortcomings in halting biodiversity loss. However, it also po...