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REWARDING BENEFITS THROUGH PAYMENTS AND MARKETS
imposing management obligations. Other beneficiaries
of ecosystem services may find that the reference level
of service provision does not meet their needs and therefore
make voluntary payments to resource owners.
In some cases, governments may chose to use PES
pragmatically as an incentive to get practice up to
the legal standard – here it operates simply as a subsidy
(see also Chapter 6) and runs counter to the
‘polluter pays principle’ (PPP). This cannot really be
seen as a long-term solution, given concerns related
to cost, budgets, governance, equity and efficiency.
In other cases, governments may find it more appropriate
to raise standards, strengthen enforcement
and implement the PPP more fully (see Chapter 7).
It should be noted that even with legal standards
complemented by positive incentives, there will often
be some residual adverse environmental impacts
compared with undisturbed ecosystems. These impacts
are ultimately borne by society unless or until
cost-effective means or technological solutions are
found to avoid them. For example, pesticide or
fertiliser use may comply with standards and even
respond to incentive instruments designed either to
discourage their use (e.g. taxes and charges, see
Chapter 7) or to reward reductions in use (PES).
Despite this, impacts may remain to the extent that
relevant legislation and targets do not demand zero
impact i.e. where use of fertilisers or pesticides is
within the assimilative or regenerative capacity of the
ecosystem (see Figure 5.3).
For these reasons, the effectiveness and feasibility
of PES is closely tied to the regulatory baseline
and its enforcement (see Chapter 7). A key
challenge is to determine the appropriate reference
level i.e. to distinguish between what resource
owners/managers can reasonably be expected to do
at their own cost and what more they might agree
to undertake on the basis of PES.
The answer will depend on how environmental rights
and duties are allocated between beneficiaries and
Figure 5.3: PES and the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP)
Source: Patrick ten Brink, own representation building on Scheele 2008
TEEB FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY MAKERS - CHAPTER 5: PAGE 9