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Kate Hamilton Presents  
State of Watershed Payments: An Emerging Marketplace Report

Nearly 300 Programs

In this video EM Director Kate Hamilton provides an overview of environmental markets, including the watershed payments report released at the 17th Katoomba Meeting in Hanoi in June. The report includes information on how cash-strapped governments around the world are using market mechanisms to keep water supplies sustainable and clean. The report identifies 288 programs yielding an estimated $9.3 billion in payments for watershed protection in 2008. These include payments for watershed services (PWS), in which “land managers” such as farmers and forest communities are paid to maintain watersheds, and water quality trading programs (WQT), in which industry and other polluters meet quality standards by buying and selling pollution reduction credits.  Over the last few decades, a total investment of about US $50 billion affected some 3.24 billion hectares of watershed (land that funnels water into streams, rivers, lakes, and aquifers).

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Related Link: State of Watershed Payments: An Emerging Marketplace.