Publications
The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocksthat produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth’s life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet.We have estimated the current economic value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes, based on published studies...
Environmentalists have argued that ecological degradation will lead to declines in the well-being of people dependent on ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite large global declines in most ecosystem services. We assess four explanations of these divergent trends: (1) We have measured well-being incorrectly; (2) well...
What is the relationship between economic development and biodiversity? Is this relationship characterized primarily by compatibilities or conflicts, does the nature of the relationship change as development proceeds? Two distinct dialogues on these issues can be found, one operating at a macro-scale and the other at a micro-scale. The former, focusing on the environmental Kuznets curve...
Over the past decade, efforts to value and protect ecosystem services have been promoted by many as the last, best hope for making conservation mainstream – attractive and commonplace worldwide. In theory, if we can help individuals and institutions to recognize the value of nature, then this should greatly increase investments in conservation, while at the same time fostering human well-being....
For far too long, conservation scientists and practitioners
have depended on intuition and anecdote to guide the design of conservation investments. If we want to ensure that our limited resources make a difference, we must accept that testing hypotheses about what policies protect biological diversity requires the same scientific rigor and state-of-the-art methods that we invest in testing...
<b>1.</b> There is great interest among policy makers in the potential of carbon-based payments for eco-
system services (PES) to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and protect forests in tropical
countries. We discuss the contributions that ecologists can make to the interdisciplinary research
required to inform the design of these initiatives.
<b>2.</b> First, we...
Payments for environmental services (PES) represent a new, more direct way to promote conserva-
tion. They explicitly recognize the need to address difficult trade-offs by bridging the interests of landowners
and external actors through compensations. Theoretical assessments praise the advantages of PES over indirect
approaches, but in the tropics PES application has remained incipient. Here I...
Costa Rica’s program of payments for environmental services provides financial compensation to owners of forests for the environmental services that forests provide. The differences in outcome between treatment (program participants) and control (non-participants) groups may be attributable to the program or they may be a result of a systematic difference between them. By using the method of...
This paper reviews the factors that make PES schemes work. Judging the effects of many PES schemes is challenging, partly because it is not evident what is being paid for compared with more traditional market transactions, and partly because it is not always possible to calculate the marginal net social benefit of the behaviors induced by the scheme. Given these difficulties, this paper analyzes...
Agricultural landscapes can provide many valuable ecosystem services, but many are externalities from the perspective of farmers and so tend to be under-produced. This paper examines an effort to make direct payments for ecosystem services (PES) in an agricultural landscape. The Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project is piloting the use of PES to induce adoption of...