Environmental services are those nature provides for free, such as climate and air-quality regulation, potable water supply, the preservation of fish stocks, and provision of tourist and leisure spots, among others. Incentives toward the conservation and protection of these services are necessary and strategic, and can be covered by the Payment for Environmental Services System (PES). PES is an instrument that values these benefits and services and involves a financial or non-financial counterpart (technical support, for example) being paid by the beneficiaries or users, such as private companies, NGOs, public authorities or individuals, to those who help maintain, restore or improve their provision, be they landowners, community groups or protected areas.

“Brazilian Initiatives for Payment for Environmental Services and Economic Incentives for the Conservation of the Marine and Coastal Environment (PES Oceans)”, a partnership between Funbio, Forest Trends and the Marine and Coastal Protected Areas Project (GEF-Mar), aims to develop a study that will map PES experiments and other economic incentives in marine and coastal environments. It will make it possible to analyze existing programs, tendencies and gaps, and ply project executors and decision-makers with solid data.

The project began in 2016 and is expected to reach completion in 2018. Among the results already obtained by the project, which will expand the Brazilian Ecosystem Services Matrix, is the development of the first PES Oceans Matrix model.