Excerpt from a story orginally posted by FAO on 06/02/2020 on The Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism website

Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) can ensure the continual provision of ecosystem goods and services by providing wide-ranging benefits at a local and global scale. Significant investment and financial and non-financial incentives are required to support producers and landscape managers to restore and protect landscapes and forests. Payments for ecosystem services (PES) represent a potential mechanism for sustainable finance and improved landscape and ecosystem management that can support FLR activities. PES is a strategy that connects beneficiaries of ecosystem services to their ‘providers’,  who manage natural resources and landscapes. By compensating providers for the lost opportunity cost of unsustainable and degrading practices, PES aims at assuring more profitable protection and conservation of ecosystem services, which is more profitable than usual business. PES can also create benefits for smallholder producers and rural communities by generating value for their landscapes, diversifying income and supporting improved livelihoods.

PES is not, however, a ‘silver bullet’ for restoration and conservation of landscapes and forests. Its implementation is highly contextual and requires the consideration of complex social and ecological systems, well-designed incentives, open dialogue and supportive regulatory frameworks. Cross-sectoral coordination and supportive enabling environments are often essential when ensuring that PES can complement existing initiatives, government programmes and private sector finance to provide incentives for sustainable practices to support FLR at scale....

For the full article, please see http://www.fao.org/in-action/forest-landscape-restoration-mechanism/resources/detail/en/c/1258023/