Payments for forest-related watershed ecosystem services

One of the main challenges in the forestry sector is the adequate accounting and benefisharing of positive externalities deriving from sustainable forest management and reforestation activities. Positive externalities in this context refer to all the services and products that result from well-functioning forest ecosystems. Unstable economic conditions in the UNECE region resulting from the financial crisis in 2008 have contributed to undermining investments in public goods provision, such as forest conservation and other environmental policies (Geels, 2013). With continuing problems of budget austerity, PES and other voluntary, market-based mechanisms are seen as an alternative source to public funding, and as an alternative source of income for private land owners for, among others, the provision of hydrological services. These mechanisms can be gradually integrated into traditional top-down command-and-control regulatory approaches.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Clean Water and Sanitation

Climate Action

Life on Land