Kyle Howard,Wei Xu,Henning Bjornlund, University of Lethbridge, Geography, wei.xu@uleth.ca
Abstract There are Increasing demands for supplying ecosystem goods and services so that the ecological degradation of wetlands, lakes and rivers can be alleviated. A number of market-based instruments including payments for delivering ecosystem services, funding mechanisms, tax breaks, and environmental taxes, are proposed to complement regulation to deal with the supply of ecosystem services worldwide. In order to ensure the effective adoption and implementation of market-based instrument for the provision of Ecosystem Services, it is imperative that the proposed suite of market-based instruments be set-up for a specific issue in a regional context and be based on the values and nature of the community. Using data from a telephone survey of rural land owners in Southern Alberta, Canada, this paper investigates the willingness of land owners to supply ecosystem goods and services and how the willingness is associated with their values and attitudes toward the provision of ecosystem services through market-based instruments.
Keywords: ecosystem services; market-based instruments; policy acceptance