Ecosystem services and resource management: Institutional issues, challenges, and opportunities in the public sector

Application of ecosystem services measurement and analysis to natural resource planning, investment, and management decisions has gained momentum over the past decade. This momentum springs from a confluence of practical conservation challenges and conceptual developments. In particular, the ecosystem services focus emphasizes an appreciation of the social and economic values of natural resources and ecological systems. Despite a growing interest in ecosystem services and their incorporation into public-sector decisions and transactions, a number of institutional challenges complicate these efforts. These challenges include dispersed agency authorities and jurisdictional fragmentation that may constrain the geographic scale of public-sector transactions or cross-jurisdictional planning and actions. Challenges also include limitations on agency capacities to adjust decisions in the face of changing resource conditions and new information. Nonetheless, many agencies have flexibility to incorporate ecosystem services assessments into their planning, use them to inform spending choices, and develop markets based on ecosystem services concepts. Challenges are, thus, more instrumental and practical rather than legal and structural.