Incentives for Ecosystem Services (IES) in the Himalayas: A ‘Cookbook’ for Emerging IES Practitioners in the Region

For IES, small details can make big differences in terms of inclusion, leadership development, representation and the sense of empowerment a community gains from participating in these programmes. All of these factors can also have an impact on the community’s trajectory in the face of unpredictable futures. The main lesson from the IES cases and descriptions we present in this Cookbook is that ‘whole system awareness’ is crucial to involving the broadest and most complete set of collaborators. Furthermore,

it is possible to use this information to gain ‘early awareness’ of unintended consequences, and address them. The fundamental basis for a sustainable, efficient and inclusive system that genuinely delivers IES benefits remains the discussions that are begun early, that seek diverse viewpoints, and that are used to test mental models of how an IES system could function and troubleshoot repeatedly, before they are implemented. We wish the readers of this publication the best in becoming active advocates and participants in this and other exciting conversations to come.

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Incentives for Ecosystem Services (IES) in the Himalayas