Payments for environmental services (PES) have gained wide popularity as an approach to promote environmentally friendly land use or agricultural production practices. Yet academics have also voiced caveats against seeing PES as a panacea. This article discusses whether PES is an appropriate and...

Payments for environmental services (PES) are an innovative approach to conservation that has been applied increasingly often in both developed and developing countries. To date, however, few efforts have been made to systematically compare PES experiences. Drawing on the wealth of case studies...

Payments for environmental services (PES) have attracted increasing interest as a mechanism to translate external, non-market values of the environment into real financial incentives for local actors to provide environmental services (ES). In this introductory paper, we set the stage for the...

Payments for environmental services (PES) have become a popular approach to address environmental degradation. However, evidence on its effectiveness is mixed. PES is not a panacea, but there are many cases where PES can be a promising tool. Yet poor PES design translates into poor performance...