Benefits to people from water ecosystems like rivers, swamps, floodplains and groundwater systems are central to human well-being. This report seeks to highlight some of the critical issues facing water ecosystem services in Africa, South Asia and Latin America and makes recommendations on the research that is needed to fill the gaps in knowledge.

The Government of Norway, through its International Climate and Forest Initiative, will allocate up to NOK3 billion (approximately US $430 million) a year between 2009 and 2012 to mitigate greenhouse gases produced by land-use change. An assessment of the utility of payments for ecosystem services as a tool for REDD was commissioned by the Norwegian Minister for the Environment and International Development to inform the International Climate and Forest Initiative. This document represents a summary of ten papers which made up the assessment."--Résumé de l'éditeur.

This report describes an action-learning project led by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) that strengthened the capacity of national and regional institutions to assess the potential of economic instruments to improve the quality and delivery of watershed services in the Caribbean. It focuses on project sites and case studies in Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, while drawing on lessons of wider regional and international interest.

Despite widely voiced concerns about some of the negative implications of protected areas, and growing pressures to ensure that they fulfil social as well as ecological objectives, no standard methods exist to assess social impacts. This report aims to provide some.