Ecosystem Services - Ecological Systems - page 88

quality for 10 million users rather than spending the estimated USD6-8 billion
needed (excluding annual operating and maintenance costs) for building a new
filtration plant. This seminal example is widely cited as evidence of the business
case for investing in natural capital instead of built capital [ 15 ]. Yet the effort
remains very much an experiment in the science and policy of investing in natural
capital, and one on which there is international focus.
Globally, watersheds are now emerging as the target of a range of creative policy
and finance mechanisms that link beneficiaries to suppliers through a payment
system. In these “water funds,” water users voluntarily pay into a pool that is
collectively managed by contributors and invested in watershed management
improvements. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has now established more than
ten water funds in Latin America, has plans to create 22 more by 2015 [ 25 ], and is
exploring the possibility of establishing some of the first funds in Africa.
Agua por la Vida y la Sostenibilidad, one of the recently established water funds,
demonstrates the diversity of water users that are becoming engaged in these funds
and the kinds of watershed management changes these funds motivate. Formally
established in the Cauca Valley, Colombia in 2009, this water fund is supported by
the region's sugarcane grower's association (PROCA ˜ A), the sugar producers'
association (ASOCA ˜ A), 11 local watershed management groups, TNC and
a Colombian peace and justice nongovernment organization (Vallenpaz). Each
member of the water fund voluntarily pays a self-determined amount into the
fund that is then jointly managed by the members to improve landscape manage-
ment in 11 watersheds covering over 3,900 km 2 .
Members in this fund have currently committed to contributing USD10 million
over 5 years to be invested in five kinds of management changes: protection of
native vegetation, restoration of denuded lands, enrichment of degraded forests,
fencing of rangelands, and implementation of silvopastoral practices. The fund is
starting a monitoring program that will ensure that these investments lead to measur-
able improvements in water quality for approximately one million water users
downstream and significant improvements in terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity.
Local Scale: Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning
People commonly think of oceans as relatively featureless expanses that defy the
drawing of lines on maps. However, recent political and scientific advances have
highlighted the need for a comprehensive approach to planning marine and coastal
uses and the need for practical tools to make this more comprehensive approach
a reality on the ground and in the water. In a marine spatial plan, a wide range of
uses of the marine environment are put on one map. But an understanding of how
such plans are likely to yield changes in the delivery of the broad range of services
people receive from the system has, until recently, remained elusive.
Along the west coast of Vancouver Island Canada, multiple, often competing
interests are struggling to define the future character of the place. Existing extrac-
tive, industrial, and commercial uses; traditional First Nations subsistence and