Scientists, Policymakers, and a Climate of Uncertainty

A paper in BisoScience asked can research gain a foothold in the politics of climate change.  Here are a couple of interesting paragraphs. 

In practically all of the heavyweight studies of climate change, including those in the National Academies quartet, the panelists assumed that the federal government is the logical leader in climate policymaking, if only because climate does not respect local boundaries (or international ones either). But there are scant signs of leadership from federal officials, and there is active opposition to any climate action (or even the notion that climate change exists) among some national legislators.


“It all depends on how you describe it,” she said. “If you are describing the problem as a water-availability issue—if we are going to face a major issue with water available for irrigation; for municipal, for our fish, the salmon—you get people to listen. If you talk about it as global warming, it's immediately, ‘go away’.  “It's kind of sad to not call it by what it is, but it's much easier to communicate with the public and with the policymaker if you put it in these terms.”

Asessing legal and institutional readiness for PES

A new publication by Forest Trend.  Also the Katoomba group hosts a PES contract toolkit which includes contract clauses.

Special issue: Contemporary Issues of Forest Research and Management in China

Environmental management Vol 48 (6), 2011, including papers about PES or Eco-compensation as they call it in China.

Should the media pay for nature conservation?

An interesting piece in the latest Science asked whether broadcasters are free-riders of ecosystem services (Link).

The future of PES

is that bright unless new systems are designed explicitly to measure its environmental and social effects, according to P. Ferraro (Conservation Biology). Also, he believes valuation efforts should be linked to real conservation effects from real conservation programs.

PES: Promise and Peril

By Kinzig et al. in the recent Science.

ES payment stacking: challenges and opportunities

An opinion piece from Ecosystem Marketplace, including the link to a survey.

Speciesbanking.com

"...a global information clearinghouse for a segment of biodiversity markets focusing on biodiversity offsetting, compensation and banking (link)"

Double-dipping in environmental markets

A recent paper in JEEM.

"There is an increasing tendency to use markets to induce the provision of environmental services. As such markets increase in scope, potential market participants might sell multiple environmental services. The question we consider here is whether participants in such markets should be allowed to sell credits in more than one market simultaneously. Some have argued in favor of such “double-dipping”, because it would make the provision of environmental services more profitable. In practice however, most programs do not allow double-dipping. We show that if the optimal level of pollution abatement is sought, then double-dipping maximizes societal net benefits. However, if pollution policies are set in a piecemeal fashion, then the caps for each market are unlikely to be optimal and, in this second-best setting, a policy prohibiting double-dipping can lead to greater social net benefits. We explore conditions under which a single-market policy is preferred, or equivalently, where piecemeal policies are likely to yield particularly inefficient outcomes."

Taking Stock: Payments for Forest Ecosystem Services in the United States

A recent report by Forest Trend, Ecosystem MarketPlace, and Forest Service.

Statement of watershed payments

A report by Ecosystem Marketplace.

Australia's 1st biobanking agreement

"NSW's Minister for Climate Change and the Environment Frank Sartor announced that the Department had signed its first official BioBanking agreement on an 80-hectare property near Camden in Western Sydney. The property, owned by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, includes 36 hectares of critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland, and habitat for 17 threatened species such as the Large-eared Pied Bat, Little Lorikeet and Cumberland Land Snail. Buyers have apparently already been secured, with the Sydney Growth Centres Biodiversity Offset Program purchasing two-thirds of the credits now (607 ecosystem credits), and the remainder in August. The Growth Centres funnels levies from developers in southwest and northwest Sydney. "

– Sydney Morning Herald article
– New South Wales Press Release
– ABC.net.au article and video

Special issue on PES

Payments for Environmental Services: Reconciling Theory and Practice. A special issue of Ecological Economics, Vol 69, issue 6.

State of biodiversity markets

Released by Ecosystem Marketplace.

Boom time for OZ water trading

Water trading doubled in 2008.

When is credit stacking a double dip?

The issue of double-counting in ecosystem service valuation became the center of attention in North Carolina.

"The problem began in November, 2008, EBX's detractors say, when the North Carolina Department of Water Quality that oversees nutrient offset mitigation permitted EBX to sell 250,000 pounds of nutrient offset credits from the same restored site where it had already sold wetland credits.

This permission enabled EBX to pocket nearly $1 million without performing significant additional environmental restoration (details)."

Elinor Ostrom breaks the Nobel mould

and how her work is related to ecosystem service management (Guardian).

HT: Saleem Ali via GIEE list

Update: Environmental economists didn't like the article though

$12/acre year vs. $1300/acre

Challenges in designing PES in Brazil.

"...designed poorly, programs to pay for forest preservation could merely serve as a cash cow for the very people who are destroying them. For example, one proposed version of the new United Nations plan would allow plantations of trees, like palms grown for palm oil, to count as forest, even though tree plantations do not have nearly the carbon absorption potential of genuine forest and are far less diverse in plant and animal life."

The US State of Oregon passed a Bill on building ecosystem service market

HT: Ecosystem marketplace and here is the bill.

Warning: ecosystem markets could actually accelerate environmental degradation

Because "the allure of these markets may be overshadowing shortcomings in the science and practice of ecological restoration (Science)."