What are ecosystem service markets?
In a traditional market system, people regularly come together to buy and sell goods or services. Effective markets require secure property rights, sufficient demand, access to market information for all stakeholders, and established legal institutions. The US market in sulfur dioxide is a good example of a fully functioning environmental market. This relatively new market effectively reduced sulfur dioxide emissions and set the lowest price at which emission reductions could be achieved. Markets for ecosystem services are based on the same premise: ‘Sellers’ are landowners that provide clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat, and other goods and services by sustainably managing their forests, wetlands, and grasslands. ‘Buyers’ of these goods and services are power plants, water treatment facilities, developers, and others who invest in conservation – either by purchasing credits to offset air emissions, water discharges, or habitat/wetland destruction or as a good will gesture to imp
