About: environmental services
Developing policies and incentives for multi-functional landscapes with trees that provide environmental services.
Humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as environmental services and include products such as clean water, healthy soils, carbon storage and biodiversity.
One of the most significant challenges humans face is trying to maintain or increase the supply of these environmental services (especially under changing climates) that will continue to support both human needs and the functioning of natural ecosystems.
The World Agroforestry Centre's work in this area builds on a decade of research on the biophysical and economic tradeoffs in natural resource management, especially in Southeast Asia and East Africa. It also builds on efforts in the past five years to design and learn from investigations toward providing efficient and fair incentive mechanisms for sustaining ecosystem services, while reforming unfavourable policies. The lessons learnt and approaches taken will be expanded to other regions and contexts, building the capacity of national partners and international supporters.
