GLP Open Science Meeting 2010 leads to publication on payments for Ecosystem Services in 'Science'

C urrent competing pressures on land for food production, biofuel production, urbanization and other uses have had severe implications for the provision of ecosystem services. This has led to growing enthusiasm for the introduction of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes that allow governments and non-governmental organizations to more accurately value and pay for environmental public goods.

Commodifying the Commons - can it work?

The authors of the report "Paying for Ecosystem Services: Promise and Peril", published in the Nov. 4 issue of the journal Science, take a critical look at the opportunities and possible pitfalls related to existing environmental markets and market-like mechanisms. The authors touch on issues including lessons learned from existing payment schemes, uncertainties in the science underpinning the various schemes in question, and the dangers of perverse incentives. The authors also look at the tradeoffs resulting from the interdependence between various ecosystem services produced on public lands or seas beyond national jurisdiction, as well as requirements for observations and measures of the importance and condition of ecosystem services.

Scientific modeling to predict results of payment schemes before they are set in place by policymakers should therefore take into account a broad range of factors, say the authors. Charles Perrings from Arizona State University points out that "in developing scientific models for future mechanisms it is crucial to model the behavior of the physical system in interaction with the social system, for example by including socioeconomic data."

The report is the result of a side event at the Global Land Project's Open Science Meeting "Land Systems, Global Change and Sustainability" at Arizona State University, 17-19th October 2010 where one of GLP's Scientific Steering Committee members (Billie Turner II) assembled a group of world leading scholars and scientists to discuss issues around payments for ecosystem services. The study's authors include Ann Kinzig, Charles Perrings, Terry Chapin III, Steve Polasky, V. Kerry Smith, Dave Tilman and B.L. Turner II, experts in economics, geography, business, urban planning and ecology at Arizona State University, University of Alaska and University of Minnesota.

To download the press release, please clic k here

For a video recording of the side event, please click here

The conference web page is still online at: http://www.glp2010.org/