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Payment for Ecosystem Services

Payment for Ecosystem Services. Katharina R. v. Bieberstein November 2010. Overview. What are Ecosystem Services (ES)? „The economics of ES“ Are direct Payment for ES (PES) a useful and ethical tool?. Ecosystem Services (ES).

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Payment for Ecosystem Services

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  1. Payment for Ecosystem Services Katharina R. v. Bieberstein November 2010

  2. Overview • What are Ecosystem Services (ES)? • „The economics of ES“ • Are direct Payment for ES (PES) a useful and ethical tool?

  3. Ecosystem Services (ES) • ES consist of flows of materials, energy, and information from natural capital stocks which combine with manufactured and human capital services to produce human welfare (Robert Constanza, 1997) • ES are the beneficial outcomes, for the natural environment or people, which result from ecosystem functions (OECD, 2010) • The 4 ES categories of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Provisioning services, Regulating services, Cultural services, and Supporting services (MA, 2005)

  4. The concept of ES in conservation politics • Can it be justified to ask for the usefulness of nature? • Complexity: One ecosystem – how many services? • Spatial and temporal scale "If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering." Aldo Leopold, 1953

  5. „The Economics of ES“ Just a thought… Does the value of the ES „water filtration“ changes, if over time the construction of a water filtration plant and its maintenance (at least for some years…) becomes cheaper than the amount of money neccessary to conserve the wetland providing the service?

  6. Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES)

  7. Payment for Biodiversity • Estimated amount of money channelled by national PES programs in China, Costa Rica, Mexico, the UK and the US alone: Over USD 6.53 billion (per year?) • Bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) to biodiversity-related activities of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members in 2007: USD 3.5 billion. Source: OECD, 2009

  8. Conclusion • Today limited impact of PES, but the concept has a potential to evolve • All depends on decision-making process and objective (and its communication): Conservation efforts have to be for the sake of nature as a whole – Payment for Biodiversity! • No cost-benefit-analysis to determine need for conservation, but ecological and ethical foundation of the decison-making process

  9. All of this is not to deny a role for ecosystem services in our general efforts to protect nature. Individual ecosystem services will occasionally prove to be useful bargaining chips in specific conservation plans and, as such, can meaningfully support programmes aimed at protecting nature for nature’s sake. However, to avoid trading in significant long-term conservation successes for marginal short-term gains, philosophical clarity is essential and caution is needed. When we employ the aid of ecosystem services to help pay the bills of conservation, we must make it abundantly clear that our overall mission is to protect nature, not to make it turn a profit. Douglas J. McCauley, 2006

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