Between markets and hierarchies: The challenge of governing ecosystem services

► Use of ecosystem services as a key concept for describing the relationship between human societies and the natural environment induces a paradigm shift in the management of natural resources. ► New governance agenda promotes the increased use of market-based policy tools. ► ES are intrinsically complex and not amenable to the commercialization of single services. ► As they tend to be common pool goods rather than private goods, ES are not best governed by markets. ► PES should be treated as incentives within the institutional analysis of social dilemmas