Discussion Now Closed: When Does Stacking Ecosystem Service Payments add Ecological Value?

If we view ecoservices  in the broad definition to include grain, lumber, carbon sequestration, water quality, etc.   then ecoservies are already stacked.   Within fields on our farm I produce corn grain, corn stover, carbon seq, water quality, and habitat – but only (the first)    two of those are value-stacked within the economy and government systems.   I am producing a larger stack of ecoservices than the value stream stack  that returns to the land.   So if  society, government, industry, retail, NGOs, etc send out a market signal for the demand of more WQ, Cseq, etc. but do not pay for all the values, then I doubt many land managers will respond to a weak and (perceived) unfair market signal.   If ecoservices are real, then the market has to recognize them as real if they want them produced and the data that they were produced.   I think part of the issue is that the major early players in the ecoservice market are concerned with paying for ecoservices.   The mindset of regulatory policy makers is to direct people to do something without compensation and when this mindset moves into the market place is only wants to ante up a little – perhaps thinking the not being regulated has some innate value that should be universally recognized.   But once the market gets a hold of value, it has no preconceived notions on what should happen, but searches for the value and how people should be compensated for that value.         Now to let the demanders off the hook somewhat, I will add that the values associated with producing  these new ecoservices do not have to be all direct monetary payments, but other economic  values such as market access, participatory benefits, insurance premium reductions, tax breaks, regulatory compliance and resource credits.   But I  think the  bottom line is that if an activity produces an outcomes that has value, it needs to be recognized by the  market and the market will find its price.      By placing these new ecoservice commodities in a box with restrictive parameters related to  permanancy, duplicity and additionality will undervalue these ecoservices relative to other unrestricted commodities to the point that we will only experience bilateral trades within  isolated regional markets that are heavily subsidized by governments and/or non-profit organizations.

As noted above, ecosystem services by their very nature are stacked.   The challenge here is to disaggregate the services in ways that translate into some monetized value so that it fits into the prevailing economic system.   We probably do not need to be too concerned about double-counting from an ecological perspective, but economists might have a different perspective.

One very interesting movement that is making positive headway is the Salmon Safe program (http://www.salmonsafe.org/).   At the SETAC meetings in Portland (November 2010), in a session on supply-side sustainability, we learned that small wineries have been adopting the land management practicies and undergoing audits to be certified under the Salmon Safe label.   There does not appear to be a strong correlation between having the label and direct monetary benefit in terms of increased sales or  increased pricing — rather, the motivation is “to do the right thing” in terms of managing lands and the connections to waterways.   If this program is representative of other opportunities, then  I think we can be successful in promoting wise stewardship for the sake of wise stewardship even when there is not a direct realization of profit in doing so.
 

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