Study Shows Market-based Strategies for Ecosystem Conservation are Surging

UCLA-led research shows more than 550 payments for ecosystem services programs are active worldwide.

Programs in which people pay landholders to support natural systems that provide benefits like flood protection, biodiversity and carbon storage, are expanding around the world, according to a new UCLA-led study.

Representative image, Source: Pixabay

The paper, published today in Nature Sustainability, is the first peer-reviewed, global assessment of “payments for ecosystem services” mechanisms. Leading the study were James Salzman, Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law at UCLA School of Law and the Bren School of the Environment at UC Santa Barbara, and researchers at Ecosystem Marketplace, an initiative of the non-profit Forest Trends.

Malaysia provides one example of how payment for ecosystem services programs work, Salzman said. The state of Sabah worked with private parties to restore and maintain 131 square miles of rainforest, home to one of the world’s highest concentrations of orangutans. The program sells “biodiversity conservation certificates,” each representing 100 square meters of forest restoration and protection for at least 50 years.

Little more than an idea a few years ago, payments for ecosystem services has grown into a large and expanding market, according to the study, which found that more than 550 programs active worldwide, in both developed and developing countries, with more than $36 billion in annual transactions.

“There has been enormous interest around the globe in payments for ecosystem services, fueled by promising case studies and exciting transactions, but until now we’ve never had a firm grasp on just how large they have really become,” Salzman said. “Payments for ecosystem services is a market-based approach that places a value on the many benefits that nature provides to people — clean water, flood control and wildlife habitat. Done right, trees can be worth more standing than cut down.” 

No payments for ecosystem services sector has seen more growth than watersheds, where communities, companies and other users pay upstream landowners for land management practices, such as conversation of croplands to forest, that reduce flooding and improve water quality.

The researchers found that payments for ecosystem services related to watersheds has the largest volume of global transactions and the greatest geographic spread, with $24.7 billion in transactions across 62 countries in 2015, compared to $6.7 billion in transactions in 2009.

The researchers found strong interest in markets for forestry and land-use practices that store carbon, such as forest conservation and restoring degraded lands, with payments topping $2.8 billion since 2009. But growth will depend on how countries implement their national climate plans under the Paris Agreement.

A United Nations program called REDD+ created a framework in which rich countries would pay developing countries for measurable actions that reduced carbon emissions from tree clearing and forest degradation. But as of now, it is unclear whether wealthy countries will accept credits from REDD+ programs.

Read full article: UCLA

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