Payments for Ecosystem Services: Getting Started in Marine and Coastal Ecosystems
A Primer
By Forest Trends View PublicationHealthy and robust marine ecosystems provide the underpinnings for profitable industries and support coastal communities throughout the world. In addition, oceans play crucial roles in regulating the atmosphere and modulating weather, storing carbon, cycling nutrients, and providing other ecosystem services. Coastal areas provide essential resources, buffer land from storms, and provide living space for almost half of the global population. Yet today many of these ecosystems and the services they provide are under threat.
This primer is designed to provide you with a solid understanding of what payments for ecosystem services (PES) are and how PES deals work in the marine environment. Specifically, it describes:
- the opportunities and risks of PES schemes, to enable accurate feasibility assessments for applying these new market-based mechanisms;
- steps to developing PES projects;
- considerations of PES for poverty reduction; and
- resources for additional reference and reading.
It is intended for an audience interested in exploring the potential of PES either as prospective PES sellers themselves or as staff of organizations that work directly with coastal communities or coastal and marine resource owners who may be interested in PES.
