Taking Stock: Payments for Forest Ecosystem Services in the United States

Author(s): D. Evan Mercer, David Cooley, and Katherine Hamilton

Published: February 2011

This report compiles data on a wide range of payments for forest-based ecosystem services—including government conservation incentive programs, voluntary markets, and compliance-driven ecosystem service markets such as wetland mitigation credits. According to the report, U.S. forestland owners received more than $1.9 billion dollars in payments for ecosystem services (PES). Furthermore, the report states that because of a lack of data for some markets and payments, this figure is likely a low-end estimate. In addition, more than 80% of all forest-based PES money in the US came from non-governmental sources, including payments for wetland mitigation, hunting leases, conservation easements, and carbon offsets. The remaining 20% came from government incentive programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) or Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

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