Rangeland Ecology & Management

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GETTING ECOSYSTEM MARKETS TO SCALE: IS IT POSSIBLE? LESSONS FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
Author
Gartner, Todd
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2014
Body

Ecosystem markets have been moving along slowly for a long time. The first markets showed up in the 1970s and 1980s. There are several great examples of local successes for water and biodiversity markets. Will these ever scale up into something that provides significant conservation, and becomes a standard policy tool? We think it is possible, but there are some significant challenges. This presentation will provide an overview of some of those challenges illustrated by stories from Pacific Northwest. Some of the challenges include: Policy implementation for the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act are decentralized to states, and often even to district offices within states. This creates inconsistent application of preferences and rules around market design and operations; Watersheds and states are unique, but there are a lot of commonalities across market design elements. It may be that only 10-20% of a market design needs to be adjusted to move from Washington to Montana, but how do we get over the strong feelings of local uniqueness; Many areas are missing the key capacities and financing to make markets work at scale; and There is a tension between theoretically wanting standardization while still wanting to maintain the flexibility of individual program control.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM Orlando, FL