Payments for Ecosystem Services: Getting Started. A Primer - UNEP

Section 1: Ecosystem Services & Emerging Markets & Payments
BOX 1
Illustrative Ecosystem Services
The key characteristic of these PES deals is that the focus is on maintaining a fl ow of
a specifi ed ecosystem “service” — such as clean water, biodiversity habitat, or carbon
sequestration capabilities — in exchange for something of economic value.
The critical, defi ning factor of what constitutes a PES transaction, however, is not
just that money changes hands and an environmental service is either delivered or
maintained. Rather, the key is that the payment causes the benefit to occur where it
would not have otherwise. That is, the service is “additional” to “business as usual,”
or at the very least, the service can be quantifi ed and tied to the payment.
In order to ensure that the ecological service is indeed maintained — as buyers expect
for their money — the transactions require regular and independent verifi cation of
sellers’ actions and their impact on the resources. Therefore, sellers must:
• Purifi cation of air and water
• Regulation of water fl ow
• Detoxifi cation and decomposition of wastes
• Generation and renewal of soil and soil fertility
• Pollination of crops and natural vegetation
• Control of agricultural pests
• Dispersal of seeds and translocation of nutrients
• Maintenance of biodiversity
• Partial climatic stabilization
• Moderation of temperature extremes
• Wind breaks
• Support for diverse human cultures
• Aesthetic beauty and landscape enrichment
Source: Daily, Gretchen (Editor). 1997. Nature’s Services. Washington
D.C., USA: Island Press.
• maintain or enhance specifi c ecological structures
and functions beyond what would have happened in
the absence of payment, and
• remain accountable to independent verifi ers
(if a buyer requires) to ensure that the “service”
being paid for is indeed being delivered.
A defi nition for PES that has become fairly wellaccepted
has been put forward by Sven Wunder,
in which he explains, “A payment for environmental
services scheme” is:
1. a voluntary transaction in which
2. a well-defined environmental service (ES), or
a form of land use likely to secure that service
3. is bought by at least one ES buyer
4. from a minimum of one ES provider
5. if and only if the provider continues to supply that
service (conditionality).” 4
4
Wunder, Sven 2005, quoted on CIFOR website: http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/pes/_ref/about/index.htm
3