Systems thinking

  Norway will pay Guyana $45 million for maintaining its low deforestation rate under a climate partnership between the two countries. 

  The payment is based on Guyana's deforestation rate of 0.054 percent between October 1st 2010 and December 31st 2011. The rate is well below the baseline established under the countries' agreement. It brings Norway's total payment to Guyana to $115 million.

While winter around the Chesapeake Bay is known for oysters and striped bass, summertime means blue crabs. If you enjoyed steamed crabs from Maryland this summer, you may have consumed crabs harvested by watermen involved in a ground-breaking test of technology to improve long-term blue crab management.

  This paper assesses the policy influence of previous coastal ecosystem economic valuations in the Caribbean and identifies the key “enabling conditions” for valuations to influence policy, management, or investment decisions. These findings will inform WRI’s and our partners’ efforts to produce a standardized framework for economic valuation of coastal ecosystems in the Caribbean.

   The Conservation Catalysts Network (CCN) focuses on universities, colleges and research institutions that are catalyzing large landscape conservation. Our members are pairings of academic and research institutions with conservation initiatives (for example, the pairing of the Harvard Forest and the Wildlands and Woodlands Initiative).

Costa Rica is the first country in the world to receive an approval from the World Bank for a Carbon Fund, which will allow the country to have access to $63 million for the Payment Program for Environmental Services (PSA, in Spanish), which will come from the sale of 12 million tons of carbon capture by the country’s forests, a process known as carbon offset.

Today marks the release of Ecosystem Marketplace's State of Watershed Payments 2012 report and with it some significant findings that include China leading the world in watershed investments and a US $2 billion increase on the protection of watersheds as a method to ensure safe water supplies as well as double the number of water initiatives being developed since 2008. 

While REDD+ is aimed at reducing emissions from forests, its effectiveness will depend on how much the benefits trickle down to those living closest to the forest. These same rural households are also best placed to provide local evidence of what works and what doesn’t, to influence decisions on REDD+ architecture at the national and international level. 

The Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) Tools Network is one of the premier sources of information about coastal and marine planning and management tools in the United States and internationally. Coastal and marine planning and management tools help practitioners incorporate scientific and socioeconomic information into decision making.