Policy Brief 7
Payments for environmental (or ecosystem) services (PES) are an increasingly popular incentive mechanism. Landowners or managers are paid for the provision of certain environmental services, or for a particular forest
management strategy generating the desired environmental services, by users or beneficiaries of these services, for example a water company seeking to protect its catchment area.
The Fifth Ministerial Conference on Protection of Forests in Europe in 2007 committed the signatory states to “facilitate the development and implementation of measures, which may include economic tools such as payments for ecosystem services in order to broaden and diversify the financial basis for sustainable forest management and to maintain the protective functions of forests”. Existing agri-environmental and forest payment measures in the EU also have similarities to PES schemes. Yet few PES currently exist in the Mediterranean region.
The objectives of this policy brief are to outline current knowledge on PES, discuss their potential applicability in the Mediterranean context and identify the challenges that need to be addressed by policy makers, public officials and researchers for their successful implementation.
More information
Recommended citation:
Irina Prokofieva, Sven Wunder, Enrico Vidale. 2012. Payments for Environmental Services: A Way Forward for Mediterranean Forests? Policy Brief 7. European Forest Institute.
Number of pages: 16
ISBN: 978-952-5453-91-1 (printed)
ISBN: 978-952-5453-92-8 (pdf)