1. Introduction: Governing the Provision of Ecosystem Services

This chapter is an introduction to the book ‘Governing the Provision of Ecosystem Services’. It aims to create a common analytical framework to the different contributions that compose the book. The call to value nature when making development decisions and to treat the world’s ecosystems as capital assets in order to prevent their continued degradation and depletion is at the origin of current concern with ‘greening’ the economy. The associated rise in the policy agenda of market-based mechanisms for environmental governance has shifted the emphasis from getting the right governmental regulation for conservation to getting the right price for ecosystem services. Our book, however, calls for moving away from this false dichotomy and to pay attention to getting the right set of rules and instruments, along multiple governance layers. Nested (polycentric) institutions have had a role to play in all the complex environmental governance systems discussed in this book, and central governments have been shown to be increasingly called upon to engage with other social actors to ensure the provision of ecosystem services.