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Commonwealth
Forests | | |
 Issues
As with any product or service, an appropriate definition is critically important. Surprisingly
perhaps, there is no clear agreement on what biodiversity or aesthetics are, and while water
and carbon are more tangible values, nonetheless they bring their own complexity.
Once the environmental service is defined the next challenge is to find an appropriate level of
removing the service or adding the services to a forested ecosystem: in other word, a
sustainable level has to be defined.
The next issue, among the myriad of issues, is the transaction costs of measuring and
monitoring the environmental services of interest. It is not possible to afford to manage
something which does not cover these transaction costs. And once these obstacles have
been overcome, the other issues are developing the markets and finding buyers for them,
addressing issues of equity or fair distribution of the income generated, identifying appropriate
levels of taxation, and developing an appropriate system of property rights.
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