Putting a Price on Ecosystem Services

摘要

"Ecosystem services" are in vogue. When I first encountered the term a quarter century ago, only a small cadre of scientists and advocates was using it. Now ecosystem services seem to be standard jargon for environmental policymakers. In the United States, a recent memorandum from the President's Council on Environmental Quality directs federal agencies to "develop and institutionalize policies to promote consideration of ecosystem services," which they will use to "better integrate into federal decision making due consideration of the full range of benefits and tradeoffs among ecosystem services." The United Kingdom has recently conducted an assessment of its ecosystem services, with the goal of better informing its land use practices. An alphabet soup of international organizations and undertakings is attempting to apply "the ecosystem service framework" in and across dozens of low- and high-income nations.