Sustainability. Paying for ecosystem services--promise and peril

Payments for ecosystem services programs: A global review of contributions towards sustainability

Payments for ecosystem services programs (PESPs) are increasingly being adopted globally to enhance sustainability outcomes. There are also hundreds of studies yearly on various aspects of PESPs, but research on their contributions to sustainability of communities and the ecosystems they depend upon at the global scale are rare. Our global review explores twelve key characteristics of PESPs at three different phases (inputs - implementation - outputs and outcomes) and their relationship types of these characteristics to sustainability outcomes. To do so, we review 376 peer-review journal articles on PESPs, and test three hypotheses related to these relationships. Our findings confirm that the relationships between each of these characteristics and sustainability outcomes are bidirectional and/or multidirectional to some extent and can be positive, negative or both, depending on specific cases and research methods used to study these relationships. The findings also disclose that separating one characteristic as the primary causal factor in any relationship or outcome is not easy as relevant characteristics are linked in a complex network. Thereby, determining key characteristics of PESPs that drive relationships for the sake of sustainability is important. Through analyzing relationships between PESP characteristics, this study offers a series of suggestions to further aid the contributions of PESPs' contributions to sustainability in the future.

Building climate resilience, social sustainability and equity in global fisheries

Although the Paris Agreement establishes targets to limit global warming-including carbon market mechanisms-little research has been done on developing operational tools to achieve them. To cover this gap, we use CO2 permit markets towards a market-based solutions (MBS) scheme to implement blue carbon climate targets for global fisheries. The scheme creates a scarcity value for the right to not sequester blue carbon, generating an asset of carbon sequestration allowances based on historical landings, which are considered initial allowances. We use the scheme to identify fishing activities that could be reduced because they are biologically negative, economically inefficient, and socially unequitable. We compute the annual willingness to sequester carbon considering the CO2e trading price for 2022 and the social cost of carbon dioxide (SC-CO2), for years 2025, 2030 and 2050. The application of the MBS scheme will result in 0.122 Gt CO2e sequestered or US$66 billion of potential benefits per year when considering 2050 SC-CO2. The latter also implies that if CO2e trading prices reach the 2050 social cost of carbon, around 75% of the landings worldwide would be more valuable as carbon than as foodstuff in the market. Our findings provide the global economy and policymakers with an alternative for the fisheries sector, which grapples with the complexity to find alternatives to reallocate invested capital. They also provide a potential solution to make climate resilience, social sustainability and equity of global fisheries real, scientific and practical for a wide range of social-ecological and political contexts.

Global justice and the opportunity costs of conservation

Opportunity costs can represent a significant portion of the costs associated with conservation projects and frequently outstrip other kinds of cost. They are typically understood to refer to the benefits someone would have obtained if conservation projects had not required them to give up current activities, such as farming or hunting or if the land had been available for uses other than conservation. This familiar way of identifying opportunity costs is flawed, however, because it threatens to condone, or take advantage of, the injustices that many people face that affect their opportunities. I integrated ideas from the political theory of global justice to examine how the analysis of opportunity costs illustrates the importance of considering conservation and issues of global justice together, rather than thinking about them in isolation. I distinguish four baselines for defining opportunity costs. A status quo baseline defines opportunity costs by asking what people would have earned had a conservation project not happened. A willingness to accept baseline defines them by asking people what it would take to make them indifferent to whether a conservation project takes place or not. An antipoverty baseline suggests that opportunity costs have been met when people affected by a project are not left in poverty. An egalitarian baseline suggests opportunity costs have been met when people are not left in relative disadvantage, with worse than average opportunities. I argue that the egalitarian baseline is the most acceptable from the point of view of justice. Such a baseline would suggest that, in practice, many of the world's poor are being unjustly treated, or even exploited, as a result of conservation activities.

A review of agroforestry ecosystem services and its enlightenment on the ecosystem improvement of rocky desertification control

Agroforestry (AF) has become an important strategy in reconciling the contradictory requirements of environmental protection and economic development in ecologically fragile areas, and whose multiple ecosystem services provide effective ways to promote the restoration of degraded ecosystems in the region. However, agroforestry ecosystem services (AFES) are usually constrained by their generative elements (vulnerability, structure, function, and ecological assets) and service management-both crucial for informed decision-making which enhances AFES supply capacity and AF sustainable management. Karst rocky desertification (KRD) is a typical case in an ecologically fragile area, and within the KRD region greatly relevant for promoting AFES as a strategy for restoring degraded regional ecosystems and for achieving sustainable development goals. In this study, a total of 164 publications related to AFES that met a set of inclusion criteria were obtained through the Scopus database using the literature review method of searching, appraisal, synthesis, and analysis. From the systematic literature review results, (i) we found that the number of relevant publications generally exhibited a year-on-year growth trend, with AFES generation elements being the most common topic (68.11 % of publications), and service management research being the second most common (31.89 % of publications); (ii) we summarised the main progress and landmark results of AFES generation elements and service management research and explored the relevant key scientific questions; and (iii) the above information enlightened the key improvement areas of KRD control ecosystem within three aspects: natural environment, agricultural development, and human-environment relationship. This study provides agroforestry practitioners and relevant decision-makers with information for improving and managing the supply capacity of AFES, and also presents important insights on the KRD control ecosystem to land degradation restoration technicians.

Quantitative Evaluation of China's Ecological Protection Compensation Policy Based on PMC Index Model

As a comprehensive benefit coordination mechanism, ecological protection compensation has received increasing attention internationally. China has also introduced a series of policies to promote ecological protection compensation mechanism improvement. The evaluation of ecological protection compensation policies is the main basis for the formulation, adjustment and improvement of the policy. Based on the front-end perspective of policy formulation, this paper selects 10 ecological protection compensation policies issued by the State Council and various ministries in China from 2006 to 2021. A text mining-based PMC index evaluation system using the ROSTCM tool is constructed to quantitatively evaluate these 10 typical policies, and four representative policies are selected for comparative analysis. The overall design of China's ecological protection compensation policies is reasonable, and 5 out of 10 policies have good PMC index scores, which are: P1, P2, P5, P7 and P9; and 5 are at acceptable levels, which are: P3, P4, P6, P8 and P10. However, the PMC surface and the concavity index indicate that there are still some limitations that need to be improved, including the obvious internal differentiation of the policies, the single effectiveness of the policies, and the insufficient incentive and guarantee measures. Finally, this paper provides suggestions for the optimization of ecological protection compensation policies accordingly.

Payments for Watershed Ecosystem Services in the Eyes of the Public, China

Recent decades have witnessed an increased development of schemes for payment for watershed ecosystem services (PWES). However, the public is usually excluded from PWES systems. Reliable and empirical research on PWES from the public perspective is scarce. Aiming to understand public perceptions, attitudes, participation, and responses to PWES, this paper investigated local residents living in the Yongding River watershed area through a face-to-face questionnaire survey. The results showed that the public had limited knowledge of PWES. The public was keen to be involved in PWES decision-making, but the current level of public participation was very low. Regarding willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA), nearly 55% of the respondents supported paying the upstream residents for protecting the environment if they were beneficiaries in the downstream areas, while 85% of the respondents agreed to accept compensation if they were contributors to environmental improvement in the upstream areas. Although some of the respondents’ daily lives were affected by the watershed environment, they were reluctant to pay, reflecting a sign of “free-riding”. The regression analysis showed that public concerns, values, knowledge of PWES and the watershed environment, and demographic factors determined the WTP and WTA. The results of the contingent valuation method and opportunity costs method showed that the annual payment for headwater conservation areas (Huailai and Yanqing) ranged from CNY 245 to 718 million (USD 36 to 106 million). This study contributes to our limited knowledge and understanding of public sentiment and makes recommendations for improving public receptivity to PWES.

How does the local-scale relationship between ecosystem services and human wellbeing vary across broad regions?

Recent studies have shown that the relationships between ecosystem services (ES) and human wellbeing (HWB) can be positive, negative, or non-existent, but the underlying causes and processes remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate how and why the local level ES-HWB relationship would change geospatially and manifest on broad regions. Using data for Mainland China, we first calculated seven ES and Human Development Index (an indicator of HWB), then used geographically weighted regression and cluster analysis to quantify the county-level ES-HWB relationship, and finally adopted Wilcoxon test and random forest to investigate key influencing factors. We found that (1) the local-scale relationship between ES and HWB exhibited a great deal of spatial heterogeneity, varying from positive to negative or no correlations across broad regions; (2) the varying relationships merged spatially into three general types of regions: Positive Correlation-Dominant Region, Negative Correlation-Dominant Region, and No Correlation-Dominant Region; and (3) the variations and spatial patterns of the ES-HWB relationships were influenced by a number of social-ecological factors (e.g., population density and land cover compositions), and generally corresponded to different stages of land use transition and socioeconomic development: a positive ES-HWB relationship was found mainly in socioeconomically underdeveloped (rural or agricultural) regions with low ES production levels; a negative ES-HWB relationship occurred mostly in intermediately developed regions with abundant non-food ES; and ES and HWB had no relationships in socioeconomically well-developed (intensive agriculture/urbanized) societies with ample provisioning ES. These findings suggest that neither the "environmentalist's paradox" nor the "environmentalist's expectation" adequately accounts for the complexity of the ES-HWB relationship.

Emergy-based eco-credit accounting method for wetland mitigation banking

Many nations are taking measures to address the negative impacts of development projects in order to achieve the goal of No Net Loss (NNL) of ecosystem services. It still faces the most fundamental and critical problem- the unified accounting of ecosystem service. To address this problem, we conducted an emergy-based ecosystem service assessment to tackle the challenges and obstacles of current accounting methods and established a new accounting framework to provide a unified measurement for ecosystem service marketing. We adopted the Credit-Debit method of wetland mitigation banking and the emergy-based method to evaluate the ecosystem services of 82 ecological projects. The results have shown that: (1) The emergy-based credit covers more types of ecosystem services, and shows advantages in terms of objectivity, accuracy, dynamic monitoring, and generalization; (2) The new accounting method can provide cross-scale and cross-type ecosystem service; (3) The Em-credit helps to promote the trans-regional eco-bank system in a large scale and at multiple levels, and it can improve the effective supervision and predict the eco-bank in a long period.

Marine heatwave challenges solutions to human-wildlife conflict

Despite the increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme climate events, little is known about how their impacts flow through social and ecological systems or whether management actions can dampen deleterious effects. We examined how the record 2014-2016 Northeast Pacific marine heatwave influenced trade-offs in managing conflict between conservation goals and human activities using a case study on large whale entanglements in the U.S. west coast's most lucrative fishery (the Dungeness crab fishery). We showed that this extreme climate event diminished the power of multiple management strategies to resolve trade-offs between entanglement risk and fishery revenue, transforming near win-win to clear win-lose outcomes (for whales and fishers, respectively). While some actions were more cost-effective than others, there was no silver-bullet strategy to reduce the severity of these trade-offs. Our study highlights how extreme climate events can exacerbate human-wildlife conflict, and emphasizes the need for innovative management and policy interventions that provide ecologically and socially sustainable solutions in an era of rapid environmental change.

Fairness analysis and compensation strategy in the Triangle of Central China driven by water-carbon-ecological footprints

This study proposes water-carbon-ecological footprints to form footprint family indicators for identifying the ecological compensation and regional development equilibrium in the Triangle of Central China (TOCC). The occupation of natural capital stock and flow consumption can be illustrated using a three-dimensional ecological footprint model, and Gini coefficient is integrated into the evaluation framework for fairness measurement from various aspects. Quantificational ecological compensation standards can be given with considering indicators associated with ecological resource conversion efficiency and willingness to pay. Results reveal that ecological and carbon footprints in the TOCC demonstrate rising trends from 2000 to 2015, while its water footprint presents a fluctuating trend. The majority of average Gini coefficients exceed the threshold value of 0.4 under different footprints, thereby indicating poor overall fairness of regional development. Water footprint in Jingmen, Xiangtan, and Yichun show relatively higher compensation expenses, while Yichang, Zhuzhou, and Fuzhou exhibit higher received compensation values compared with other cities. Carbon footprint in Wuhan, Loudi, and Xinyu indicate high compensation expenses due to their overuse of biological resources. Maximum amounts of compensation expense appear in Nanchang and Wuhan from the perspective of ecological footprint. This study can provide a theoretical reference for sustainable development in the TOCC by performing a comparative analysis with Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration and developed countries.

Gains or losses? A quantitative estimation of environmental and economic effects of an ecological compensation policy

Ecological compensation is an innovative and effective tool to explore the coordinated development of socioeconomic prosperity and ecological protection, especially for a watershed crossing different regions. It converts the externalities of ecosystem services into practical financial incentives for local stakeholders. This empirical study applies a quantitative policy evaluation approach to evaluate the environmental and economic effects of an ecological compensation policy, using the paddy land-to-dry land (PLDL) program implemented in China's Miyun Reservoir watershed as an example. The study is based on responses to a 2017 questionnaire regarding agricultural production inputs and outputs administered to 269 households in Hebei Province, where the PLDL program has been operational for over 10 yr. The results show that the program has reduced nitrogen usage by 24% on average in 2017 and decreased the total nitrogen emission load by 16.98 tons for the entire case area, which accounts for approximately 18.6% of the total nitrogen load reduction of the Miyun Reservoir basin. However, the upstream households involved in this program have experienced agricultural income losses higher than that allowed for by the current compensation criterion. Therefore, this paper discusses the factors that should be considered in the process of determining ecological compensation criteria. In particular, the paper proposes a differential compensation scheme based on the environmental effect at the individual level to avoid a standard payment for all households irrespective of their different contributions. This differential compensation payment scheme facilitates the fair treatment of environmental contributors and maximizes environmental benefits through an equitable allocation of limited ecological compensation funds. This study serves as a theoretical and practical reference for further improvement of the current ecological compensation policy in China. The study also sheds light on practices for estimating ecological compensation criteria and formulating ecological compensation policies for other regions or countries in the future.

Payments for nutrient uptake in the blue bioeconomy - When to be careful and when to go for it

Harvesting of marine biomass for various applications may generate ecosystem services that currently lack a market price. One of these is nutrient uptake, which could counteract eutrophication. Market-based instruments (MBIs) such as cap & trade, compensatory mitigation, and payment for ecosystem services could help internalize such positive externalities. However, activities of the blue bioeconomy are diverse. We show that identifiable market characteristics can provide guidance concerning when to use these instruments and not. We find that the activities most suitable for MBIs are those that have positive environmental impacts but that are not (yet) financially viable. For activities that are already profitable on the biomass market, ensuring 'additionality' may be a significant problem for MBIs, especially for cap & trade systems or compensatory mitigation. We provide an overview of how some current biomass options fit into this framework and give suggestions on which biomass types to target.

Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality-of rising system-wide turbulence-calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.

Incentives for landscape restoration: Lessons from Shinyanga, Tanzania

Owing to high rates of land and forest degradation, there is consensus that forest landscape restoration is a global priority with the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests committing to restore about 350 Million hectares by 2030, globally. However, there is a need for incentives that motivate these restoration efforts and disincentives aimed at restricting activities that result in further land degradation. We provide insights and understanding of the incentives and disincentives measures applied within the forest restoration systems through a case study in the Shinyanga region of Tanzania. Incentives that have promoted forest landscape restoration in Shinyanga include; conservation benefits, education and information, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), well-defined property rights & increasing land prices and awards while disincentives include; penalties, quotas and permits. Intrinsic incentives that are derived from self-desire within an individual such as conservation benefits and education & information were more preferred within Shinyanga region compared to extrinsic incentives which relied more on external factors such as REDD+ and awards. Nonetheless, a combination of both incentives and disincentives has led to the success of restoration in Shinyanga; positive incentives worked better for privately owned lands while regulatory disincentives worked better for communally owned restoration lands. High levels of social equity and trust have enabled the functioning of these incentives while a robust governance structure at the local level has been instrumental in enforcing the disincentives. There is need for government and all stakeholders to maintain and enhance the gains from restoration, especially empowering communities further, for these incentives to work.

Fair payments for effective environmental conservation

Incentive-based measures are increasingly popular to alleviate ongoing biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions from land use change. However, effectively using scarce conservation funds remains a major challenge. Using behavioral economic experiments in the buffer zone of a Vietnamese national park, we show that unfair payment distributions that are beyond land users’ control can reduce the environmental effectiveness of incentives, and that women exert more effort. Our study region is threatened by forest degradation and is part of the nationwide Vietnamese Payments for Forest Ecosystem Services program, making it an important and relevant context for improving the effectiveness of conservation measures. These results show that policymakers aiming for effective and efficient programs should pay close attention to fairness and gender.

Global efforts for biodiversity protection and land use-based greenhouse gas mitigation call for increases in the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental conservation. Incentive-based policy instruments are key tools for meeting these goals, yet their effectiveness might be undermined by such factors as social norms regarding whether payments are considered fair. We investigated the causal link between equity and conservation effort with a randomized real-effort experiment in forest conservation with 443 land users near a tropical forest national park in the Vietnamese Central Annamites, a global biodiversity hotspot. The experiment introduced unjustified payment inequality based on luck, in contradiction of local fairness norms that were measured through responses to vignettes. Payment inequality was perceived as less fair than payment equality. In agreement with our preregistered hypotheses, participants who were disadvantaged by unequal payments exerted significantly less conservation effort than other participants receiving the same payment under an equal distribution. No effect was observed for participants advantaged by inequality. Thus, equity effects on effort can have consequences for the effectiveness and efficiency of incentive-based conservation instruments. Furthermore, we show that women exerted substantially more conservation effort than men, and that increasing payment size unexpectedly reduced effort. This emphasizes the need to consider social comparisons, local equity norms, and gender in environmental policies using monetary incentives to motivate behavioral change.

From payments for ecosystem services to eco-compensation: Conceptual change or paradigm shift?

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is an effective policy in conserving ecosystem services and is increasingly applied globally. The concept of PES was firstly defined in 2005, researches with various terminologies, concepts, and practices emerged since then. This paper analyzed the research patterns of PES studies through bibliometric methods, with a special focus on the trends of terminology, location (geographical research hotspot), types of PES, and PES effectiveness evaluation based on author keywords analysis. The results showed that PES started to receive considerable academic attentions from 2005, and the number of PES publications have relatively kept an increasing trend since then. The most influential journal, country, research organization, and author were Ecological Economics, USA, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS, China), and Dr. Wunder. Further analysis revealed that there were various terminologies in PES studies, notably "ecological compensation" and "eco-compensation" (EC) were primarily adapted by Chinese research community. China was the geographical research hotspot and developing countries (Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil) have received growing academic interests in last decade. "Forest and Carbon" PES was the most concerned types of PES in last five years. There were 125 articles evaluated the effectiveness of empirical PES initiatives, and the majority focused on the social aspect. We proposed two suggestions for future research: (1) adapting EC as an alternative term for PES studies because of its inclusiveness and representation of empirical practices; (2) enhancing integrated evaluation of PES programs to achieve multiple benefits.

Evaluation of pay-for-release conservation incentives for unintentionally caught threatened species

In the developing world, the exploitation of threatened species jeopardizes their permanence in the wild. Because not all captures are intentional, for instance when capture methods have low selectivity, pressure on these species may be lessened by releasing living incidentally caught animals. However, it is often unrealistic to expect people to voluntarily do so because it means foregoing the benefits of resource extraction. Financial incentives for such animal release may foster conservation objectives. Reducing human-animal conflicts, protecting natural habitat, and conserving nests of threatened species are examples of conservation benefits that can be built on financial reward systems. However, incentives aiming to protect unintentionally captured threatened species are scarce. We considered pay for release, a type of ecosystem-service payment designed to foster the release of incidentally captured threatened species. We aimed to determine the best conditions to implement this scheme, its potential benefits (e.g., incentivizing the release of threatened species), and pitfalls and priority research needs (e.g., required conditions for pay for release to work) to show that its global applicability is possible. Given that approaches solely based on education and law enforcement may be ineffective under some circumstances, we argue that pay for release can protect incidentally captured endangered species if used under conditions conducive for its success. When local participants' intrinsic motivation for conservation is weak, but the release of incidentally live-caught animals into their habitats is readily achievable, pay-for-release schemes could jump start urgently needed conservation efforts against indiscriminate animal harvesting.

Stakeholder preferences for payments for ecosystem services (PES) versus other environmental management approaches for mangrove forests

Choosing from a range of environmental management options can be more effective when considering stakeholder preferences. This is particularly true in the coastal tropics, where numerous actors and institutions intersect to shape environmental governance. Here, we investigate stakeholder preferences for an array of options regarding the sustainable development and conservation of mangrove forests. These include: payments for ecosystem services (PES), ecotourism, selling non-timber forest products, bio-charcoal production, and forest restoration financed via corporate social responsibility (CSR). Empirical studies from two socio-ecological settings in Thailand reveal the preferences of government agencies, corporations, municipal and village heads, and several community associations (fishers, senior citizens, housewives, environmentalists, salt-flat workers, oil palm plantation owners). Interviews and participatory multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) elicited preferences based on the likelihood of achieving favourable environmental, economic, and social outcomes. Findings reveal (1) PES was favoured - although motivations were not driven solely by the prospect of financial gain, but by the land tenure security, collaborations, and long-term ecological benefits that were perceived to occur as a result; (2) PES for local services (water quality) were preferred over global services (climate change mitigation); (3) criteria related to wellbeing, livelihoods, and environmental stewardship are influenced by broad cultural and political ideologies, rather than site-specific characteristics; and (4) clear tensions both between private and public actors, and between national and local actors. Our study highlights the importance of involving all informed stakeholders in the decision-making process in order to understand the complex reasons driving environmental management preferences, and to gain greater acceptance of biodiversity conservation and natural resource management actions. We also call for greater transparency in MCDA studies by presenting more of the qualitative data used to subjectively construct the quantitative criteria.

Assessing ecological infrastructure investments

Conventional markets can underprovide ecosystem services. Deliberate creation of a market for ecosystem services [e.g., a payments for ecosystem services (PES) scheme] can close the gap. The new ecosystem service market alters behaviors and quantities of ecosystem service provided and reveals prices for the ecosystems service: a market-clearing equilibrium. Assessing the potential for PES programs, which often act as ecological infrastructure investment mechanisms, requires forecasting the market-clearing equilibrium. Forecasting the equilibrium is complicated, especially at relevant social and ecological scales. It requires greater disciplinary integration than valuing ecosystem services or computing the marginal cost of making a land-use change to produce a service. We conduct an ex ante benefit-cost assessment and forecast market-clearing prices and quantities for ecological infrastructure investment contracts in the Panama Canal Watershed. The Panama Canal Authority could offer contracts to private farmers to change land use to increase dry-season water flow and reduce sedimentation. A feasible voluntary contracting system yields a small program of about 1,840 ha of land conversion in a 279,000-ha watershed and generates a 4.9 benefit-cost ratio. Physical and social constraints limit market supply and scalability. Service delays, caused by lags between the time payments must be made and the time services stemming from ecosystem change are realized, hinder program feasibility. Targeting opportunities raise the benefit-cost ratio but reduce the hectares likely to be converted. We compare and contrast our results with prior state-of-the-art assessments on this system.

Spatio-temporal Evolution and Factors Influencing the Control Efficiency for Soil and Water Loss in the Wei River Catchment, China

With regard to important scientific and policy issues in the Wei River Catchment, much emphasis has been put on the objective assessment of the effectiveness of ecological restoration measures and the analysis of effective ways to promote the efficiency of ecological management. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, the present study investigates the measurement of the control efficiency for soil and water loss induced by the Sloping Land Conversion Program and terrace fields, a part of the Water and Soil Conservation Project, in an attempt to detect and quantify indicators of different fields to do so. The applied methods included a Bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis model which covers 39 counties over the period of 2000–2015. Then, an exploratory spatial data analysis was conducted to capture the spatial characteristics for the control efficiency of each county. Finally, the geographically weighted regression model was employed to identify the spatial heterogeneity and evolutionary characteristics in the relationship between control efficiency and natural conditions and socioeconomic development in each sample county. Results show that the control efficiency increased from 0.263 to 0.365 during the study period. In addition, the Moran’I indicates that efficiency presented a stable spatial agglomeration but still at a low level, from 0.192 to 0.151. The difference in control efficiency is the result of a combination of multiple factors, of which the most relevant factors often vary among different counties, indicating that regional governments should consider full-scale initiatives. This analytical perspective helps to provide experience and reference for countries facing the same environmental challenges in the world.

Assessing the feasibility of carbon payments and Payments for Ecosystem Services to reduce livestock grazing pressure on saltmarshes

Saltmarshes provide important services including flood control, climate regulation, and provisioning services when grazed by livestock for agriculture and conservation purposes. Grazing diminishes aboveground carbon, creating a trade-off between these two services. Furthermore, saltmarshes are threatened by overgrazing. To provide saltmarsh protection and ensure the continuing delivery of ecosystem services, there is a need to incentivise land managers to stock environmentally sensible densities. We therefore investigated the possibility of agri-environmental schemes and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) to compensate for lost livestock revenue under reduced grazing regimes and provide carbon sequestration and other benefits. This is the first study to consider the benefits arising from a potential carbon market to saltmarshes, although similar schemes exist for peatland and woodland. We calculated the net economic benefit (costs of livestock production are removed from revenue) to farmers obtained from a hectare of grazed saltmarsh under low (0.3 Livestock Units per hectare per year), moderate (0.6), high (1.0) and very high (2.0) stocking densities accounting for livestock revenue, carbon benefits, and agri-environmental subsidies. We repeated the procedure considering additional benefits transferred from the literature in terms of provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services provided by protected saltmarshes. The net benefits were assessed for a range of market carbon prices and social costs of carbon, e.g. the opportunity cost of carbon for society. Applying the model to Scottish saltmarshes we find that the current range of market prices could prompt transitions from high to moderate regimes in areas where livestock value is low, however break-even prices for transitions showed high spatial variability due to spatial variability in livestock values. In some areas of the West Highlands, the break-even carbon price is negative, indicating that the current agri-environmental schemes are able to more than compensate for the lost revenue accruing to farmers by a reduced grazing density. However, in other areas, such as the Outer Hebrides, the break-even carbon price is positive. Private PES schemes or increased public subsidies should then be provided to generate net benefits. It is reasonable to infer that a pure carbon market may have limited scope in incentivising consumers to buy carbon services, especially in areas with limited local number of buyers and corporates of small size. Under this circumstance, a premium carbon market offering bundled ecosystem services may help reduce grazing pressure across a larger number of Scottish saltmarshes, thereby providing globally important climate regulation services and at the same time protecting sensitive habitats.

Payment for Targeted Grazing: Integrating Local Shepherds into Wildfire Prevention

Wildfires are one of the most prominent risks for Mediterranean forests, reducing the flow of ecosystem services and representing a hazard for infrastructure and human lives. Several wildfire prevention programs in southern Europe are currently incorporating extensive livestock grazers in fire prevention activities to reduce the high costs of mechanical clearance. Among these the Andalusian network of grazed fuel breaks, the so-called RAPCA program, stands out for its dimension and stability over time. RAPCA currently works with 220 local shepherds who, with their guided flocks maintain low biomass levels in almost 6000 ha of fuel breaks in public forests to meet fire prevention standards. This work analyses the institutional design and performance of the RAPCA payment scheme under a payment for environmental services (PES) framework. Results show effectiveness of the payment scheme while efficiency is achieved through savings relative to the mainstream mechanized biomass removal, as well as through reduced information asymmetry. High-level and stable political commitment has been crucial for the emergence and consolidation of RAPCA. Moreover, key intermediaries and sound monitoring practices increased levels of trust amongst involved actors. Beneficial side-effects include social recognition of shepherds’ activities and reduction of their friction with forest managers.

Scaling participation in payments for ecosystem services programs

Payments for ecosystem services programs have become common tools but most have failed to achieve wide-ranging conservation outcomes. The capacity for scale and impact increases when PES programs are designed through the lens of the potential participants, yet this has received little attention in research or practice. Our work with small-scale marine fisheries integrates the social science of PES programs and provides a framework for designing programs that focus a priori on scaling. In addition to payments, desirable non-monetary program attributes and ecological feedbacks attract a wider range of potential participants into PES programs, including those who have more negative attitudes and lower trust. Designing programs that draw individuals into participating in PES programs is likely the most strategic path to reaching scale. Research should engage in new models of participatory research to understand these dynamics and to design programs that explicitly integrate a broad range of needs, values, and modes of implementation.

To what extent can ecosystem services motivate protecting biodiversity?

Society increasingly focuses on managing nature for the services it provides people rather than for the existence of particular species. How much biodiversity protection would result from this modified focus? Although biodiversity contributes to ecosystem services, the details of which species are critical, and whether they will go functionally extinct in the future, are fraught with uncertainty. Explicitly considering this uncertainty, we develop an analytical framework to determine how much biodiversity protection would arise solely from optimising net value from an ecosystem service. Using stochastic dynamic programming, we find that protecting a threshold number of species is optimal, and uncertainty surrounding how biodiversity produces services makes it optimal to protect more species than are presumed critical. We define conditions under which the economically optimal protection strategy is to protect all species, no species, and cases in between. We show how the optimal number of species to protect depends upon different relationships between species and services, including considering multiple services. Our analysis provides simple criteria to evaluate when managing for particular ecosystem services could warrant protecting all species, given uncertainty. Evaluating this criterion with empirical estimates from different ecosystems suggests that optimising some services will be more likely to protect most species than others.

An assessment of adherence to basic ecological principles by payments for ecosystem service projects

Programs and projects employing payments for ecosystem service (PES) interventions achieve their objectives by linking buyers and sellers of ecosystem services. Although PES projects are popular conservation and development interventions, little is known about their adherence to basic ecological principles. We conducted a quantitative assessment of the degree to which a global set of PES projects adhered to four ecological principles that are basic scientific considerations for any project focused on ecosystem management: collection of baseline data, identification of threats to an ecosystem service, monitoring, and attention to ecosystem dynamics or the formation of an adaptive management plan. We evaluated 118 PES projects in three markets-biodiversity, carbon, and water-compiled using websites of major conservation organizations; ecology, economic, and climate-change databases; and three scholarly databases (ISI Web of Knowledge, Web of Science, and Google Scholar). To assess adherence to ecological principles, we constructed two scientific indices (one additive [ASI] and one multiplicative [MSI]) based on our four ecological criteria and analyzed index scores by relevant project characteristics (e.g., sector, buyer, seller). Carbon-sector projects had higher ASI values (P < 0.05) than water-sector projects and marginally higher ASI scores (P < 0.1) than biodiversity-sector projects, demonstrating their greater adherence to ecological principles. Projects financed by public-private partnerships had significantly higher ASI values than projects financed by governments (P < 0.05) and marginally higher ASI values than those funded by private entities (P < 0.1). We did not detect differences in adherence to ecological principles based on the inclusion of cobenefits, the spatial extent of a project, or the size of a project's budget. These findings suggest, at this critical phase in the rapid growth of PES projects, that fundamental ecological principles should be considered more carefully in PES project design and implementation in an effort to ensure PES project viability and sustainability.

Structural and Psycho-Social Limits to Climate Change Adaptation in the Great Barrier Reef Region

Adaptation, as a strategy to respond to climate change, has limits: there are conditions under which adaptation strategies fail to alleviate impacts from climate change. Research has primarily focused on identifying absolute bio-physical limits. This paper contributes empirical insight to an emerging literature on the social limits to adaptation. Such limits arise from the ways in which societies perceive, experience and respond to climate change. Using qualitative data from multi-stakeholder workshops and key-informant interviews with representatives of the fisheries and tourism sectors of the Great Barrier Reef region, we identify psycho-social and structural limits associated with key adaptation strategies, and examine how these are perceived as more or less absolute across levels of organisation. We find that actors experience social limits to adaptation when: i) the effort of pursuing a strategy exceeds the benefits of desired adaptation outcomes; ii) the particular strategy does not address the actual source of vulnerability, and; iii) the benefits derived from adaptation are undermined by external factors. We also find that social limits are not necessarily more absolute at higher levels of organisation: respondents perceived considerable opportunities to address some psycho-social limits at the national-international interface, while they considered some social limits at the local and regional levels to be effectively absolute.

Evaluating governance for sustainable development - Insights from experiences in the Dutch fen landscape

Prominent strands of discussion in the literature on governance for sustainable development debate how change can be induced to enhance sustainability, and how to evaluate the interventions aimed at prompting such change. Strikingly, there are few contributions about how prominent ideas of inducing change deal with multiple governance criteria for pursuing sustainable development. Moreover, the way ideas about inducing change relate to criteria of governance for sustainable development is not yet studied in an empirical context. This paper therefore comparatively analyses how three prominent modes of sustainable development governance - adaptive management, transition management and payments for environmental services - relate to a set of five prominent criteria reported in the literature, namely: equity, democracy, legitimacy, the handling of scale issues and the handling of uncertainty issues. It finds that the academic debates on these three modes address these criteria with varying attention and rather fragmented, while in the empirical setting of the Dutch fen landscape several aspects relating to the studied criteria were present and substantially influenced the functioning of the three modes of sustainable development. Together, the analysis of the literature debate and the empirical data are able to show that a narrow evaluation perspective may fail to diagnose and capture relevant struggles and complexities coming along with governance for sustainable development relevant issues. The study shows that in order to advance our understanding of governance for sustainable development, it is indeed important to include multiple criteria in studying these modes. Moreover, the study shows the importance of including empirical experiences which manifest when different modes for sustainable development are applied in real-world settings.

Habitat Fragmentation Intensifies Trade-Offs between Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Heathland Ecosystem in Southern England

While habitat fragmentation represents a major threat to global biodiversity, its impacts on provision of ecosystem services are largely unknown. We analysed biodiversity value and provision of multiple ecosystem services in 110 fragments of lowland heathland ecosystems in southern England, in which vegetation dynamics have been monitored for over 30 years. Decreasing fragment size was found to be associated with a decrease in biodiversity and recreational values, but an increase in relative carbon storage, aesthetic value and timber value. The trade-off between either biodiversity or recreational values with the other ecosystem services therefore became more pronounced as heathland size decreased. This was attributed to a higher rate of woody succession in smaller heathland fragments over the past three decades, and contrasting values of different successional vegetation types for biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. These results suggest that habitat fragmentation can reduce the potential for developing "win win" solutions that contribute to biodiversity conservation while also supporting socio-economic development. Approaches to multi-purpose management of fragmented landscapes should therefore consider the potential trade-offs in ecosystem services and biodiversity associated with fragmentation, in order to make an effective contribution to sustainable development.

Natural capital and ecosystem services informing decisions: From promise to practice

The central challenge of the 21st century is to develop economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being. Essential to meeting this challenge is the incorporation of natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides into decision-making. We explore progress and crucial gaps at this frontier, reflecting upon the 10 y since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We focus on three key dimensions of progress and ongoing challenges: raising awareness of the interdependence of ecosystems and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science of ecosystem services, and implementing this science in decisions to restore natural capital and use it sustainably. Awareness of human dependence on nature is at an all-time high, the science of ecosystem services is rapidly advancing, and talk of natural capital is now common from governments to corporate boardrooms. However, successful implementation is still in early stages. We explore why ecosystem service information has yet to fundamentally change decision-making and suggest a path forward that emphasizes: (i) developing solid evidence linking decisions to impacts on natural capital and ecosystem services, and then to human well-being; (ii) working closely with leaders in government, business, and civil society to develop the knowledge, tools, and practices necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem services into everyday decision-making; and (iii) reforming institutions to change policy and practices to better align private short-term goals with societal long-term goals.

Setting the bar: Standards for ecosystem services

Progress in ecosystem service science has been rapid, and there is now a healthy appetite among key public and private sector decision makers for this science. However, changing policy and management is a long-term project, one that raises a number of specific practical challenges. One impediment to broad adoption of ecosystem service information is the lack of standards that define terminology, acceptable data and methods, and reporting requirements. Ecosystem service standards should be tailored to specific use contexts, such as national income and wealth accounts, corporate sustainability reporting, land-use planning, and environmental impact assessments. Many standard-setting organizations already exist, and the research community will make the most headway toward rapid uptake of ecosystem service science by working directly with these organizations. Progress has been made in aligning with existing organizations in areas such as product certification and sustainability reporting, but a major challenge remains in mainstreaming ecosystem service information into core public and private use contexts, such as agricultural and energy subsidy design, national income accounts, and corporate accounts.

Merging economics and epidemiology to improve the prediction and management of infectious disease

Mathematical epidemiology, one of the oldest and richest areas in mathematical biology, has significantly enhanced our understanding of how pathogens emerge, evolve, and spread. Classical epidemiological models, the standard for predicting and managing the spread of infectious disease, assume that contacts between susceptible and infectious individuals depend on their relative frequency in the population. The behavioral factors that underpin contact rates are not generally addressed. There is, however, an emerging a class of models that addresses the feedbacks between infectious disease dynamics and the behavioral decisions driving host contact. Referred to as "economic epidemiology" or "epidemiological economics," the approach explores the determinants of decisions about the number and type of contacts made by individuals, using insights and methods from economics. We show how the approach has the potential both to improve predictions of the course of infectious disease, and to support development of novel approaches to infectious disease management.

Linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services for public policy

Governments worldwide are recognising ecosystem services as an approach to address sustainability challenges. Decision-makers need credible and legitimate measurements of ecosystem services to evaluate decisions for trade-offs to make wise choices. Managers lack these measurements because of a data gap linking ecosystem characteristics to final ecosystem services. The dominant method to address the data gap is benefit transfer using ecological data from one location to estimate ecosystem services at other locations with similar land cover. However, benefit transfer is only valid once the data gap is adequately resolved. Disciplinary frames separating ecology from economics and policy have resulted in confusion on concepts and methods preventing progress on the data gap. In this study, we present a 10-step approach to unify concepts, methods and data from the disparate disciplines to offer guidance on overcoming the data gap. We suggest: (1) estimate ecosystem characteristics using biophysical models, (2) identify final ecosystem services using endpoints and (3) connect them using ecological production functions to quantify biophysical trade-offs. The guidance is strategic for public policy because analysts need to be: (1) realistic when setting priorities, (2) attentive to timelines to acquire relevant data, given resources and (3) responsive to the needs of decision-makers.

Measuring effectiveness, efficiency and equity in an experimental Payments for Ecosystem Services trial

There is currently a considerable effort to evaluate the performance of Payments for Ecosystem Services as an environmental management tool. The research presented here contributes to this work by using an experimental design to evaluate Payments for Ecosystem Services as a tool for supporting biodiversity conservation in the context of an African protected area. The trial employed a 'before and after' and 'with and without' design. We present the results of social and ecological surveys to investigate the impacts of the trial in terms of its effectiveness, efficiency and equity. We find the scheme to be effective at bringing about additional conservation outcomes. However, we also found that increased monitoring is similarly effective in the short term, at lower cost. The major difference - and arguably the significant contribution of the Payments for Ecosystem Services - was that it changed the motives for protecting the park and improved local perceptions both of the park and its authority. We discuss the implications of these results for conservation efficiency, arguing that efficiency should not be defined in terms of short-term cost-effectiveness, but also in terms of the sustainability of behavioral motives in the long term. This insight helps us to resolve the apparent trade-off between goals of equity and efficiency in Payments for Ecosystem Services.