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IDR Team Summary 8: Design a system for international trade that accounts for impacts on ecosystem services.
Pages 85-92

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From page 85...
... Countries that establish policies to protect forests do not save forest ecosystem services globally, because the supply of forest products merely shifts deforestation to other nations. In many cases, markets for ecosystem services are blind to the side effects of virtual or embodied ecosystem services.
From page 86...
... • What policy instruments are available for accounting for virtual or embodied ecosystem services in international trade? • What should be the goal of an international policy for managing virtual or embodied ecosystem services?
From page 87...
... Walker, National Wildlife Federation IDR TEAM SUMMARY Beth Marie Mole, NAFKI Science Writing Scholar University of California at Santa Cruz IDR Team 8 was asked to design a system for international trade that accounts for the economic impacts on ecosystem services. To address this challenge and identify areas for future work, they used palm oil production as a practical framework because it is particularly damaging to ecosystems rich in biodiversity and often spans multiple countries.
From page 88...
... But the second country, which processes the oil, has also cleared an ecosystem to make way for a factory that puts out industrial waste. By the time the palm oil gets to the United States, the process has damaged a series of ecosystem services that are not factored into the transac tion costs or the price of the birthday cake purchased at the supermarket.
From page 89...
... • Outreach programs: By having companies put labels on their products that boast that their palm oil came from a sustainable plantation, public awareness and purchasing trends could persuade companies to reduce their damage to ecosystems. While these approaches provide a framework to start accounting for impacts on ecosystem services attached to goods that cross the globe, they still don't comprehensively account for individual ecosystem service costs and trade-offs.
From page 90...
... Possible watchdogs and judges While many institutions and structures, including the World Trade Organization, already exist to monitor trade, IDR Team 8 was uncertain whether current regulatory bodies could take on the new role of ecosystem service impact monitoring or if new entities need to be established. However, the team acknowledged that current national policy bodies could provide a starting point for monitoring impacts linked to trade.
From page 91...
... The funds provided by this tax could also be invested, through international banking institutions, into companies that provide positive ecosystem service impacts. Although many questions and unknowns remain about how exactly to monitor ecosystem service impacts that accrue during international trade, the IDR Team 8 agreed that the more countries committed to addressing the challenge, the better.


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