Beyond carbon: Conceptualizing payments for ecosystem services in blue forests on carbon and other marine and coastal ecosystem services

Marine and coastal ecosystems are increasingly being degraded or destroyed even as human dependence on their ecosystem services is increasing. New conservation tools are continually being developed, but successful implementation is constrained by lack of adequate funding. Recent reports on the potential ability of “blue forest” coastal ecosystems to sequester significant amounts of carbon is pointing the marine conservation community toward carbon credit as a potential management as well as financing tool. Marine and coastal ecosystems provide a multitude of ecosystem services beyond carbon sequestration, such as coastal protection, fish nursery, water purification, and marine biodiversity. The opportunity exists to develop payments for these ecosystem services and capture their as yet uncaptured value to finance their protection. This paper explores the use of payment for ecosystem services (PES) in marine and coastal settings and focuses on those services found in “blue forests”. The challenges and necessary considerations for developing coastal and marine PES are discussed and the conceptual framework for developing payment schemes for five characteristic ecosystem services in blue forests are presented.

► Marine and coastal ecosystem services are extremely valuable to human wellbeing.
► PES is a potential mechanism for capturing non-market values of ecosystem services.
► PES can serve as both innovative conservation financing and management strategy.
► PES feasible due to innovative marine resource management & measurement techniques.
► Other PES potential: fish nursery, coastal protection, water quality, biodiversity.