Making Payments for Ecosystem Services Work

This paper reviews the factors that make PES schemes work. Judging the effects of many PES schemes is challenging, partly because it is not evident what is being paid for compared with more traditional market transactions, and partly because it is not always possible to calculate the marginal net social benefit of the behaviors induced by the scheme. Given these difficulties, this paper analyzes the different schemes currently\ud operating in order to identify the most efficient approaches in terms of both ‘process’ (how the scheme works) and ‘outcome’ (what the scheme produces). It poses and..