• Acheteurs de services environnementaux
• Les bénéficiaires
• Les acheteurs
• Principaux marchés
• Tendances futures

Acheteurs de services environnementaux

Identification des bénéficiaires

Establishing where and when the benefits from environmental services occur is fundamental to understand the basis of demand and payments for them.

There is a growth in demand and willingness to pay for environmental services at global, regional and local level, mainly driven by environmental regulations. Private and public firms and individuals are ready to pay for such services when they provide a low-cost way of complying with a regulation. For example, carbon sequestration payments are driven by international regulations limiting carbon emissions and creating a market for offsets. Voluntary PES schemes are also emerging (e.g. consumers show an increasing willingness to pay for environmental services through their purchases of ecolabelled products). Most PES programmes are funded by the public sector, although the private sector is increasingly becoming involved in purchasing environmental services(1) .

Establishing where (at local, regional or global level) and when (immediately or into the future) the benefits from environmental services occur, and estimating their value are essential elements for evaluating the potential demand for them and identifying as many buyers as possible from the longer list of potential beneficiaries. In table 3.1 a categorization of the benefits from environmental services, grouped according to scale and type of value is provided - for a discussion on the values of ecosystem services see the section About PES .

Table 3.1: Indirect, option and non-use values associated with environmental services(2)

	Indirect use value	Option value	Non-use value
Off-site Local benefits	Watershed, soil and flood protection: Water quality Water and nutrient recycling Soil fertility Pest and disease resistance Aesthetic, cultural and spiritual values	Conservation of agricultural biodiversity for potential future uses	Aesthetic, cultural and spiritual values
Global benefits	Climate change mitigation	Genetic material which can be used for agricultural, medical other future purposes	Biodiversity conservation and species preservation

Payments for Environmental Services from Agricultural Landscapes - PESAL
is a project funded by the FAO Netherlands Partnership Programme © FAO 2010