New report: Get the science right when paying for nature’s services
A report published in the journal Science has highlighted that too many Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes are built on incomplete scientific foundations and has proposed a new set of natural science principles to improve their chances of success.
PES schemes have been growing in popularity in recent years offering the promise of a win-win on both conservation and development goals. These financial mechanisms provide a means in which those who benefit from nature’s services compensate land stewards and managers, who are often based in developing countries, for protecting them. For these projects to work well it is crucial that those managing ecosystem services, such as those provided by mangroves, are fully aware of the factors that influence the proper functioning of the environmental components they are trying to preserve.
Yet the authors of the report led by Shahid Naeem, a Professor of Ecology at Columbia University, found that after reviewing 118 case studies that around 60% did not report on or were missing at least one of the basic scientific criteria. To tackle this issue the researchers developed a set of six natural science principles which will help projects fully understand an ecosystem’s dynamics and baseline conditions and design a monitoring system to measure the effectiveness of their management practices.
The report is aimed at a wide variety of stakeholders from investors and policy makers to those on the ground involved in natural resource management. The authors highlight that rather than pointing the finger at projects that are lacking in basic science and don’t work well their report demonstrates ways in which projects can use the guidelines to become more ecologically robust and enhance their chances of success.
