Wednesday, October 01, 2008

New ecosystem services manual

UN Pulse has alerted us to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)'s newly published Payments for Ecosystem Services: Getting Started. A Primer (full text, pdf, 1.57 MB). The book explains the payments ecosystem service (PES) and markets and the mechanisms of PES deals, and provides guidance for developing PES deals. ELDIS has also recently created an online guide to payment for ecosystem services.

A recent post on the Resilience Science weblog, Are ecosystem service trade-offs relatively common?, highlights a recent paper by Heather Tallis et al. that reports the finding that win-win conservation projects — those that aim to achieve both conservation objectives and economic gains — are relatively rare. The study looked at World Bank projects with dual objectives of alleviating poverty and protecting biodiversity and found that only 16% made major progress on both objectives.

You can find these resources online.

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