Payments for ecosystem services: legal and institutional frameworks

Abstract

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has shown that despite their importance to human well-being and biodiversity, the world’s freshwater ecosystems as well as water-related ecosystem services are rapidly being degraded. In order to stop this development and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular the MDG 7 to ‘ensure environmental sustainability’, governments and international processes are searching for the most effective way to govern water-related ecosystem services. In this context, two approaches exist: the traditional strategy of command and control, and the use of economic or market-based instruments