PARENT SESSION
Monday, August 7, 1:00-2:30 pm
SS 10 - Trading places, saving spaces? Ecosystem services, ecology, and economy
Mississippi, Mezzanine Level, Cook Convention Center
Organized by: K Klubnikin (kklubnikin@fs.fed.us) and D Causey

The experts in this special session will address what is known and not known about the emerging issue of ecosystem services.


Speakers:

J Fox, EPRI Solutions--Market-based mitigation: how to protect the public interest


E Notman, USDA Forest Service--Payments for ecosystem services: paying for natural ecosystens versus paying for services


T Kroeger, Defenders of Wildlife--Design is everything: structuring ecosystem service markets to achieve ecological objectives


D Bruggeman, Michigan State University--Designing nature reserves on private land using tradable permit markets


JO Niles, Tropical Forest Group--Can we do it all? Are there exceptional land management projects?

Payments for ecosystem services: paying for natural ecosystems versus paying for services.

Notman, Evan^*,1, ¹ USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC, USA

ABSTRACT- Creating systems to pay for the environmental services (PES) provided by ecosystems offers a mechanism by which to ensure that those responsible for the management of ecosystems have the incentive to protect the potential of these ecosystems to provide services. The number and type of PES has become increasingly diverse during the last 10-15 years and the objectives for creating these systems are also diverse. This talk will compare PES in natural ecosystems versus human dominated managed ecosystems. PES systems aimed at protecting natural undisturbed ecosystems offer the opportunity to provide multiple services including otherwise difficult to quantify cultural and esthetic services. In contrast PES systems in highly managed ecosystems may also be focused on changing management practices in order to allow for the targeted delivery of specific services while also providing greater opportunity for additional economic incentives via productive systems or natural resource extraction. While careful measuring and monitoring of individual services may not be as important to meet the multiple goals of paying to protect natural systems, establishing efficient and accurate measurements of the target services produced by highly managed systems will be important for the long-term sustainability of these PES programs.

Key words: ecosystem services, management, payments