Description

Excerpt from Introduction: This paper has been written to examine existing markets and financial mechanisms that are being used to provide hydrological services from watersheds and to assist forest owners and policymakers in assessing the advisability and feasibility of using such mechanisms. After a global scoping of innovative cases of financial mechanisms we have chosen to describe nine illustrative cases. These nine cases come from around the world – the United States, Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica, France, and Australia – and have been selected to represent various types of financial mechanisms in various settings. We have chosen cases in which administrative and financial mechanisms capture the value of hydrological services provided by forests and are ‘innovative’ in that they have only recently been either used or considered for use in the forestry sector. In most – if not all – of our cases it is not a question of either a market or a regulatory approach rather the mix of the two.

Table of Contents:

Introduction Case 1 – France Perrier Vittel’s payments for water quality Case 2 – Costa Rica: Hydroelectric utilities’ financing of upstream reforestation Case 3 – Cauca River, Colombia: Association of irrigators’ payments for improvement of stream flow

Case 4 – United States: Nutrient trading Case 5 – Australia: Water transpiration credits Case 6 – New York City: Watershed management program Case 7 – Colombia: Environmental services tax (eco-tax) for watershed management Case 8 – State of Parana, Brazil: Public sector redistribution mechanism Case 9 – United States: The conservation reserve Annex 1: Features of innovative cases of watershed management from around the world