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 coming either from entities that damage ecosystems or directly benefit from the ecosystem services that are produced. From the outset, there is no easy way to know whether ecosystem services markets would substitute for or complement existing policy approaches to ecosystem protection. Whether markets might be preferable to other approaches—including simply regulating actions that cause ecosystem damage—depends on how well several practical challenges can be addressed when applying a theoretical model of environmental markets to the real world. Those challenges involve overcoming measurement and monitoring difficulties associated with evaluating the effects of management actions intended to mitigate ecosystem damage or enhance ecosystem health, among others. Questions also arise over whether ecosystem services markets might perform better apart from government regulation and under the sole control of nongovernmental organizations where they can emerge naturally via private enterprise. Despite current enthusiasm for ecosystem services markets, there are few easy answers to such questions. Acknowledging that there are challenges ahead can be a first step in assessing what role ecosystem services markets might play in an overall strategy of ecosystem protection.